After walking for almost eight hours, they came to a clearing Garnet looked out into the field. He noticed an old building. The afternoon is getting late. "Let's make camp here for the night." Garnet said. He could hear the waves from the water so he knew that the water was not too far away. Quickly the others begin to make camp. Garnet saw a movement in the trees just above him. He lifted the bow and arrow and shot. A wild turkey fell from it roost and landed just a few feet from where Garnet was standing.
"Start a fire, we have dinner!" He said as he showed the group his catch and hoping that the sunset would hide the fire. "Iridian and Jasper the water sounds like it is not that far in that direction, can you go collect some water for us?"
He looked over his supplies and pulled out his first aid kit. "Glint come here. I want to get a look at the cut on your arm."
"What cut?" Glint said as walked over to him.
"That one," Garnet said pointing to a cut in the jumpsuit that Glint was wearing.
"Strange, I never felt it."
"I noticed it when were at the Cornucopia. It did not look bad then. So I decided it would be safer if we waiting until we were in the protection of the forest." Garnet looked over the cut. It was definitely from a blade of some sort. He covered the cut in iodine to kill any infection that may have been growing in the hours since the bloodbath and gently covered the wound. "Anyone else injured?" He asked. Quietly one by one the others began to let him look to their scrapes and cuts from the events of the day. Over all they were mostly bruised, with a couple of scrapes and a few cuts. Overall they had managed to survive the initial fighting with very little injuries.
Before they could answer the canon began to fire.
"That was 45 shots," Pearl said as it stopped. There were forty-five tributes killed in the blood bath. "That is the largest amount ever killed in a blood bath."
"Well when you think that this is the largest amount of tributes ever, it is not that surprising." Silence followed. The entire forest sounded like it was at a stand-still. Garnet went back preparing the fire to cook his kill.
Two more canon shots were heard; Garnet reached for his sword without thinking, and ran off in the direction that Iridian and Jasper had just left in. It did not take him very long to get to a clearing near a small lake. He stopped when he came to a body. Jasper was practically lying over the body. Garnet moved closer to where Jasper was. When Garnet got close enough he noticed that Jasper was holding Iridian's body an arrow was in her chest.
"He shot her as we were gathering the water," He motioned over to a dead tribute just on the other side of lake. "Luckily I kept a bow so that I could kill him in return"
"Was he alone?" Garnet asked.
"From what I can tell."
"Get the water and let's go. We cannot let them all know that we are here."
Silently they made their way back to camp. The fire was already started and the turkey was already plucked.
"They killed Iridian, but Jasper was able to kill the person that killed her. We just cannot tell who it is. They are on the other side of a small lake." Garnet said and he sat down beside the fire. "We have to get in a good position tonight to see the pictures of the dead. Once we know who is still alive we can then make a plan as to what to do." They sat in silence as the turkey cooked over a small fire. Garnet looked over to where Diorite was sitting. Tears were in her eyes, but not a sound came from her.
Dinner was eaten in silence. No one needed to talk. They were all spending time remembering the life that Iridian had. She was not his best friend. Killed about the same time as her best friend Glitter was the year before.
After they had finished eating Silk looked around. "Who do you think is still out there?"
"Well I know that we killed most of 2 and 4, and they killed quite a few of the little ones."
"I didn't see much of District 12; I think they mostly ran for the woods without getting supplies.
"They must think they can forage their way through. There are not many edible plants that we have encountered so far," Glint said looking around.
"You sit still," Silk said as she approached Garnet with some iodine that she had collected from the Cornicopia. "You are the worst injured of all of us, and you are spending more time worrying about the others." She slowly pulled off his shirt. She wet a pick of his shirt with the water that Jasper had collected and slowly washed off the caked blood from the stab wound that Garnett had received earlier. Once she had the wound cleaned, she began to put the iodine on it to kill any infection, and put a bandage that she had found to cover it."
Garnet quickly re-dressed and began to apply camouflage make-up that he had found in the supplies at the Cornucopia to his face while the others chatted. When he was done, he painted the others face. "We need to hide amongst the tree line when we get to the lake. That is the best place to see who is dead and who is still alive," he quickly covered the fire, and silently made his way to towards the lake. The others followed him, Pearl staying closest to him. Pearl was the type of person that he needed near him right now. She paid attention to everything. She was the one that had the best knowledge of the other tributes. She could tell their names and their strengths from just the little time that they were together in the training sessions. The arrived and got into position just as the anthem was beginning to play. Iridian's picture was the first that they saw. Slowly her picture changed into one of the girls from District 2, five other members of district 2 followed." Only Caesarea and Jarlath are left," Pearl whispered into his ear. Five members of District 3 followed. Pearl did not have anything to say about the four of them. Six members of District 4 took their place." "The two cut-throat girls who thought that they were prettier than everyone else managed to survive." Pearl whispered. Only two girls were killed from District 5, but 6 from District 6, and boy and a girl were killed from District 7, and another four from District 8, three from District 9, and only one single boy survived from District 10. Three boys from district 11 are dead and 2 girls and a guy from District 12.
"Pearl your thoughts?" Garnet asks.
"Well the ones that are still alive are going to be hard to catch. Most of them are of medium size. Their Districts do well when the Careers groups are small. There are four careers left. That means that they will try to avoid a fight with a bigger group. They will focus on hunting down people that are by themselves. It shouldn't be too hard to find them. There are so many still left."
"District 12 will try to band together. They seem to know each other fairly well. They will stay as a group. Wouldn't be surprised if the boy from 10 manages to convince them to help give him safety for a while. If not he will be an easy target for the Careers. District 11 will head for shelter. I do not expect them to fight."
"I don't know Yarrow attacked me. They seem to have a confidence from the extra training. He almost got the best of me right off the bat."
"I can almost promise you that District 7 is in the forest. It will be where they feel the most comfortable."
A twig snapped a few feet away from them. Garnet raised his bow. He closed his eyes, and listened. Another twig broke. Garnet let the arrow go, and the bone crushing sound that followed told him that his arrow had hit its target.
Pearl was the first to move towards the body. A small girl armed with a club was lying dead on ground. Garnet removed the arrow from her body.
"She was from 6," Pearl said taking the club out of her hand. The cannon sounded announcing her death to others. Garnet went back to his hiding spot amongst the tree line looking over the lake.
"We should get some sleep," He said as slowly the others went back to their campsite.
"Night One, and half of us are already dead," Pearl said as she crawled into one of the sleeping bags.
"Yeah, at this rate there will be no need for Mutts." Amaze said trying to make a joke of it.
"I think that was the point," Silk said.
"Why?" asked Pearl
"The more that we kill each other the more that the Game Makers do not need to rely on Mutts to move the story along. Just look at it this way, they get better rating when we kill, then when we are killed by the Mutts," Garnet said
"So then we give them what they want. I like our chances better now that most of District 2 and 4 are dead. If they release Mutts it puts us back on the bottom," Silk added.