The fog rolls in so quickly and before I know it, my skin is blistering and I am in agony. Tiny searing stabs wherever the droplets of mist touch my skin.
"Run!" I scream at the others. "Run!"
Finnick snaps awake instantly, rising to counter an enemy. But when he sees the wall of fog, he tosses a still-sleeping Mags onto his back and takes off.
Normally it would be Peeta slowing us down as running is not his strong suite but this time it's me. I stumble and fall and Peeta is right there besides me picking me up.
I lock my fingers tightly into his and say, "Just keep running'', this time my survival isn't the goal. Peeta's is.
''I'm never going to leave you'' he says whilst picking me up yet again. I push on harder and we seem to move a little faster, but never enough to afford a rest, and the mist continues to lap at our heels. Droplets spring free of the body of vapour. They burn, but not like fire. Less a sense of heat and more of intense pain as the chemicals find our flesh, cling to it, and burrow down through the layers of skin. Our jumpsuits are no help at all. We may as well be dressed in tissue paper, for all the protection they give.
Finnick, who bounded off initially, stops when he realizes we're having problems. But this is not a thing you can fight, only evade. He shouts encouragement, trying to move us along, and the sound of his voice acts as a guide, though little more.
Peeta's foot catches in a knot of creepers and he sprawls forward before I can catch him. As I help him up, I become aware of something scarier than the blisters, more debilitating than the burns. The left side of his face has sagged, as if every muscle in it has died. The lid droops, almost concealing his eye. His mouth twists in an odd angle toward the ground. "Peeta—" I begin. And that's when I feel the spasms run up my arm.
Whatever chemical laces the fog does more than burn — it targets our nerves. A whole new kind of fear shoots through me and I yank Peeta forward, which only causes him to stumble again. By the time I get him to his feet, both of my arms are twitching uncontrollably. The fog has moved in on us, the body of it less than a yard away. Something is wrong with Peeta's legs; he's trying to walk but they move in a spastic, puppetlike fashion.
I feel him lurch forward and realize Finnick has come back for us and is hauling Peeta along. I wedge my shoulder, which still seems under my control, under Peeta's arm and do my best to keep up with Finnick's rapid pace. Stumble again and we all fall to the ground.
"It's no use," I say. "Can you take them both? Go on ahead, I'll catch up." A somewhat doubtful proposal, but I say it with as much surety as I can muster.
I can see Finnick's eyes, green in the moonlight. I can see them as clear as day. Almost like a cat's, with a strange reflective quality. Maybe because they are shiny with tears. "No," he says. "I can't carry them both. My arms aren't working." It's true. His arms jerk uncontrollably at his sides. His hands are empty. Of his three tridents, only one remains, and it's in Peeta's hands.
What happens next is so fast, so senseless, I can't even move to stop it. Mags hauls herself up, plants a kiss on Finnick's lips, and then hobbles straight into the fog. Immediately, her body is seized by wild contortions and she falls to the ground in a horrible dance.
I want to scream, but my throat is on fire. I take one futile step in her direction when I hear the cannon blast, know her heart has stopped, that she is dead. "Finnick?" I call out hoarsely, but he has already turned from the scene, already continued his retreat from the fog. Dragging my useless leg behind me, I stagger after him, having no idea what else to do. I'm probably dead already. Parts of me are dead, or clearly dying. And Mags is dead. This is something I know, or maybe just think I know, because it makes no sense at all.
I follow Finnick until he collapses on the ground, Peeta still on top of him. I seem to have no ability to stop my own forward motion and simply propel myself onward until I trip over their prone bodies, just one more on the heap. This is where and how and when we all die, I think. But the thought is abstract and far less alarming than the current agonies of my body. I hear Finnick groan and manage to drag myself off the others. Now I can see the wall of fog, which has taken on a pearly white quality. Maybe it's my eyes playing tricks, or the moonlight, but the fog seems to be transforming. Yes, it's becoming thicker, as if it has pressed up against a glass window and is being forced to condense. I squint harder and realize the fingers no longer protrude from it. In fact, it has stopped moving forward entirely. Like other horrors I have witnessed in the arena, it has reached the end of its territory. Either that or the Gamemakers have decided not to kill us just yet.
"It's stopped," I try to say, but only an awful croaking sound comes from my swollen mouth. "It's stopped," I say again, and this time I must be clearer, because both Peeta and Finnick turn their heads to the fog. It begins to rise upward now, as if being slowly vacuumed into the sky. We watch until it has all been sucked away and not the slightest wisp remains.
Peeta rolls off Finnick, who turns over onto his back. We lie there gasping, twitching, our minds and bodies invaded by the poison. After a few minutes pass, Peeta vaguely gestures upward. "Mon-hees." I look up and spot a pair of what I guess are monkeys. I have never seen a live monkey— there's nothing like that in our woods at home. But I must have seen a picture, or one in the Games, because when I see the creatures, the same word comes to my mind. I think these have orange fur, although it's hard to tell, and are about half the size of a full-grown human. I take the monkeys for a good sign. Surely they would not hang around if the air was deadly. For a while, we quietly observe one another, humans and monkeys. Then Peeta struggles to his knees and crawls down the slope. We all crawl, since walking now seems as remarkable a feat as flying; we crawl until the vines turn to a narrow strip of sandy beach and the warm water that surrounds the Cornucopia laps our faces. I jerk back as if I've touched an open flame.
Rubbing salt in a wound. For the first time I truly appreciate the expression, because the salt in the water makes the pain of my wounds so blinding I nearly black out. But there's another sensation, of drawing out. I experiment by gingerly placing only my hand in the water. Torturous, yes, but then less so. And through the blue layer of water, I see a milky substance leaching out of the wounds on my skin. As the whiteness diminishes, so does the pain. I unbuckle my belt and strip off my jumpsuit, which is little more than a perforated rag. My shoes and undergarments are inexplicably unaffected. Little by little, one small portion of a limb at a time, I soak the poison out of my wounds. Peeta seems to be doing the same. But Finnick backed away from the water at first touch and lies face down on the sand, either unwilling or unable to purge himself.
Finally, when I have survived the worst, opening my eyes underwater, sniffing water into my sinuses and snorting it out, and even gargling repeatedly to wash out my throat, I'm functional enough to help Finnick. Some feeling has returned to my leg, but my arms are still riddled with spasms. I can't drag Finnick into the water, and possibly the pain would kill him, anyway. So I scoop up shaky handfuls and empty them on his fists. Since he's not underwater, the poison comes out of his wounds just as it went in, in wisps of fog that I take great care to steer clear of. Peeta recovers enough to help me. He cuts away Finnick's jumpsuit. Somewhere he finds two shells that work much better than our hands do. We concentrate on soaking Finnick's arms first, since they have been so badly damaged, and even though a lot of white stuff pours out of them, he doesn't notice. He just lies there, eyes shut, giving an occasional moan.
I look around with growing awareness of how dangerous a position we're in. Its night, yes, but this moon gives off too much light for concealment. We're lucky no one's attacked us yet. We could see them coming from the Cornucopia, but if all four Careers attacked, they'd overpower us. If they didn't spot us at first, Finnick's moans would give us away soon.
"We've got to get more of him into the water," I whisper. But we can't put him in face-first, not while he's in this condition. Peeta nods to Finnick's feet. We each take one, pull him one hundred and eighty degrees around, and start to drag him into the saltwater. Just a few inches at a time. His ankles. Wait a few minutes. Up to his midcalf. Wait. His knees. Clouds of white swirl out from his flesh and he groans. We continue to detoxify him, bit by bit. What I find is that the longer I sit in the water, the better I feel. Not just my skin, but my brain and muscle control continue to improve. I can see Peeta's face beginning to return to normal, his eyelid opening, the grimace leaving his mouth.
Finnick slowly begins to revive. His eyes open, focus on us, and register awareness that he's being helped. I rest his head on my lap and we let him soak about ten minutes with everything immersed from the neck down. Peeta and I exchange a smile as Finnick lifts his arms above the seawater.
"There's just your head left, Finnick. That's the worst part, but you'll feel much better after, if you can bear it," Peeta says. We help him to sit up and let him grip our hands as he purges his eyes and nose and mouth. His throat is still too raw to speak.
"I'm going to try to tap a tree," I say. My fingers fumble at my belt and find the spile still hanging from its vine.
"Let me make the hole first," says Peeta. "You stay with him. You're the healer."
That's a joke, I think. But I don't say it out loud, since Finnick has enough to deal with. He got the worst of the fog, although I'm not sure why. Maybe because he's the biggest or maybe because he had to exert himself the most. And then, of course, there's Mags. I still don't understand what happened there. Why he essentially abandoned her to carry Peeta. Why she not only didn't question it, but ran straight to her death without a moment's hesitation. Was it because she was so old that her days were numbered, anyway? Did they think that Finnick would stand a better chance of winning if he had Peeta and me as allies? The haggard look on Finnick's face tells me that now is not the moment to ask.
Instead I try to put myself back together. I rescue my mockingjay pin from my ruined jumpsuit and pin it to the strap of my undershirt. The flotation belt must be acid resistant, since it looks as good as new. I can swim, so the flotation belt's not really necessary, but Brutus blocked my arrow with his, so I buckle it back on, thinking it might offer some protection. I undo my hair and comb it with my fingers, thinning it out considerably since the fog droplets damaged it. Then I braid back what's left of it.
Now that I've cleaned myself up I move onto the matter of fact that I have been avoiding. I slowly move down to my protruding stomach and I nervously rub my hand over it. I haven't felt him move for 24 hours and I'm beginning to lose all hope.
''Are you okay?'' Finnick says startling me because I didn't realise he was out of the deep water, he sounds normal now which is good.
''Uh yeah, I am'' I say wiping a tear and sniffling.
''What about him?'' he asks genuinely concerned.
''He hasn't moved in the last 24 hours'' I say as more tears flow down my face.
''I'm really sorry Katniss'' he says squeezing my shoulder as he leaves to give me some space.
And I just sit there and cry. I cry from exhaustion. I cry from pain. I cry for Peeta and the fact that we could have died and most of all I cry for my baby. The small child within me, whom I love very much but I don't even know if its heart is still beating.
Here ya go, finally another chapter, hope you like it. I know a lot of it has been quite similar to the book at the moment but don't worry the next chapter is definitely going to change it up
Missemi26 xxx