Chapter Twenty-Five
Day 10 (cont).
"Alanna, wake up."
I was shivering. Ethan was on top of me, wiping my eye with some sort of wet cloth. Maybe it was his sock.
"You feeling okay?" he asked.
"Yes," I whispered, barely audible. My throat felt tight. Thats when I realized when it was snowing. About an inch worth of snow surrounded me.
Gamemakers.
"Where's Wade?" I asked.
Ethan stopped. He looked to the sky and said "uh…"
Suddenly, it all came back to me. The painful memory crossed my eyes in a flash.
I began crying.
"Don't cry, Alanna, please," Ethan said and wiped my frozen tears from my eyes "I got you here now."
"Its all my fault," I whimpered "Wade's dead because of me. I wasn't paying attention. I should've seen Antonio coming."
"It was foggy. I couldn't see a few inches in front of my face. How could you tell what was behind him?"
"Don't reassure me." I started to get up, but the moment I lifted my head, I got a headache. I could still see that I was in the ring of pines, probably in the middle of it, and the snow going all around blinding white like the fog. Plus it was getting dark. All I could see was Ethan's face. When I lifted my hands, I saw blotches of died blood covering them.
"Jackie didn't want you running off so she knocked you out," Ethan explained "You have a couple black eyes and a broken nose, or seems. I fixed a cast for you while she goes out hunting for Antonio."
"Antonio deserves to die," I mumbled.
"What?"
"He has to die. He just has to!" I started screaming the words over and over.
"Shh, shh," Ethan said, putting his finger to my lips, silencing me.
"I want Wade back," I weeped.
"Alanna, please, be quiet." I squeezed my lips together. Ethan nodded and smiled. His emerald eyes looked hard into mine. "I"m really sad about Wade too. Wade asked you to win. Aren't you going to try?"
"I.. I don't know."
"Aren't you going to try?"
I didn't respond. He looked hard at me. "Aren't you going to try?"
I took a deep breath causing a small cloud of air and my nose to hurt. "Yes… I guess-"
"Not 'I guess,' I want you say that you will try. Try your hardest. Right now, you need to recover."
The snow suddenly stopped completely, clearing up the whole world around me and Ethan. The clouds began to slowly part. The sky was completely black until the Capitol's seal appeared in the sky. Wade's face replaced it for a minute before vanishing with the anthem's music. The clouds covered the sky and the blizzard went on.
I took deep breaths again, ignoring the pain in my nose. Ethan had me eat some grapes before we cuddled together at the base of tree. Ethan wrapped three jackets around us, his, mine, and what appeared to be Wade's by the 5 and the blood.
I remembered the sleeping bag, or bags. "What about our sleeping bags?" I asked.
"I think we lost them in the fire," he responded "My mind is muddled."
I wanted to light a fire, but I didn't want to risk a light that would attract others.
I stayed awake and listened as Ethan's breaths became slower and slower and his eyes fluttered. I had a haunting thought and yelled, "Don't die on me!"
Ethan's eyes snapped open."I'm not dying, Alanna," he said. He closed his eyes and fell asleep in a few minutes.
I vowed to protect Ethan. I had let my guard down and Wade had died on me. Now I must protect Ethan, keep up my guard, and keep him alive as long as I could. If I fail, I'll win for both of them.
"I will come home Amy," I said over the snowy wind "I'm trying. I will."
I stayed up as long as I could, keeping guard as the tip of my casted nose turned to ice and my face burned in the extreme cold, before realizing slumber was taking over me. I woke up Ethan, who blindly agreed.
I closed my eyes, blocking out the crazed, horrific world the Capitol had put me in.
And I realized something. Wade didn't die because of me, neither Antonio as well. He died because of the Capitol, the same reason Aaron and many others are dead. I remembered me and Wade's conversation on the train we promised never to bring up again. They don't care about our lives, or the countless others have died in the past before me. They want to be entertained with bloody deaths, they want us to be punished for something we did over half a century ago. Wasn't suffering after the Dark Days enough? Knowing to never repeat it again or future generations will feel the same thing?
Do we really have to have the Hunger Games?
Day 11
I woke up shivering. The soft snow had stopped falling but had left harder versions of it to bury me and Ethan to our shoulders. It felt like I was surrounded by concrete. I climbed out my snowy capture and shook Ethan's head.
"Merff," he mumbled. His eyes slowly opened and he climbed out the snow. We were both shivering, even though the sun was out. Frozen air was still flowing throughout the arena. Jackie was nowhere to be seen. Me and Ethan ate two whole pineapples and saved the last four. Jackie has some more food, but we don't know where she is.
Ethan helped me up and we began to trudge through the snow. We each had on our own jacket and Wade's stretched across to each of us. Our boots kept our feet from getting wet but as our feet sank into the snow, it only got worse.
"We shouldn't be moving," I said sometime later "We're trailing footprints."
"But we have to find Jackie," Ethan said.
We kept walking. I had my spear ready for anybody or animals, with the craving of meat in my mouth. My hands were to numb for using my bow.
By afternoon, clouds were coming back to the sky, blocking the sun and our only natural warmth.
"Let's stop," Ethan said. We leaned by a tree. I recommended climbing it, but I didn't want to know how long I'd be able to hold onto a branch.
We sat back down in the snow, shivering as the wind picked up and the snow blew through the sky. We munched on half a pineapple as the sun set behind the clouds. When it was dark, the clouds parted and the blinding snow went to ease. The anthem played but today probably wasn't eventful. The sky was clear of faces. After it finished, the blizzard strangely did not resume.
Day 12
I woke up to bright sunlight. The snow was up to our shoulders, like yesterday, but there was a warmer feeling to it. I recognized a rabbit with brown fur by a tree. Slipping out my bow, I painstakingly aimed an arrow and shot the rabbit.
As I was skinning the animal, Ethan woke up. He took down a few branches for a fire and I lit the wood with one of my few matches. I made sure the fire didn't rise to high or burned off a lot of smoke. When it was just burned charcoals, I gently placed the animal.
Silence came over me and Ethan, having nothing to say, giving me a chance to think.
I immediately thought of Wade and sadness pushed against me. I forced myself not to cry, or even show tears. I just watched the rabbit sizzle and cook.
I thought of what Josh must be doing. He, Keith, and their parents must be mourning. I remembered the promise me and Wade made to each other. If one of us became victors, we would care for the other's family. It would be easy for me since I could relate.
When Aaron died, my family detached ourselves from everyone else and mourned for a couple weeks, hardly leaving our home. When we did, we tried not talking to anyone else, or making eye contact for that matter. Even after me and Amy returned to school and our parents to work, it was like the McLees were still shut away in some distant world for a while. Amy and I had used Our Time during this period to go out to the Woods, getting up high and unreachable in some trees, and try to talk of anything else, which was very hard. Sometimes, we'd be staring into the sky, watching the world above us change shapes and colors, or watching the world below us progress without the two of us. If one of us began to cry, the other would join or try to comfort the other.
It was one time, unsure really when it was because loss of time, when me and Amy were just looking into the sky. Amy had looked down at her necklace, rubbed her finger over the plastic covering, and began to whimper.
"Amy, don't cry, please," I had said shakily, because I really felt like joining in this time.
"Aaron is gone," she had choked out.
"He's…" I had lost words, unsure what to say. I looked at my necklace and Amy's. "He's… he's with us. In our necklaces. All we have to do is… is look at the picture."
Amy had nodded, tears streaking down her eyes.
"He's… he's in a better place now."
I snapped from my thoughts to the sound of metal. I prepared for Antonio or Gretchen or Tailor, and heard something untelligible.
What do you think of this chapter? Did you like it? What will be happening next? Who or what is approaching Alanna and Ethan?