The First Annual Hunger Games 29
Maple, District Six
Surprisingly enough, I wake up.
"Sync?" I whisper softly, starting to shake violently as I see the blood everywhere as I realize it is not my own, "Sync?!"
I scramble to my feet, eyes darting around frantically as my heart rate increases too fast for it to possibly be healthy. I dart around the forest, feet slipping out from under me on the blood everywhere as I search for my brother with my sobs growing louder. Now I drop to my knees, heaving out my cries and banging my fist on the ground in denial.
Suddenly, the dark sky lights up as the Capitol theme music starts to blare out of hidden speakers. I yank the tears frantically from my eyes, choking and hiccupping on my own grief as I gaze up to the artificial sky. Please don't let him be dead…please don't let him be dead….
Genevieve Ophelius, District Three
Aaden Darwick, District Three
Shimmer Sparklelips, District One
And then there is one more name:
Sync Henconsin, District Six
So that's that. My big brother, the one whom I could trust with all my secrets and my emotions….dead and gone, just like that. I let out another miserable wail, falling over and burying my face in my arms. I will die right here, just like he must have when that bomb blew up. I wonder for a while if this all I will ever do until my unavoidable death arrives: Cry and mourn over my loss. There is no doubt the orphanage is mourning and dreading when I die….at least, I hope they dread when I am killed off.
I'm not strong and I'm not very fast. I'm loud and I'm afraid to kill anyone. I would kill whoever sent the bomb down, but I don't know who. We'd heard an explosion about an hour before the bomb fell into his hands….and then cold, hard reality hits me.
The Gamemakers did this to us….to me.
No sooner did I realize that did I hear another explosion. I tense up, that sound having a permanent effect on me. That meant another bomb had been dropped….and then there was another explosion, farther off. I scramble to my feet, gripping my hands over my heart like I used to grip Sync's arm. This bomb wasn't close to me, but who was to say they were to send the next one right in front of me?
They were bombing us.
And I ran.
Airmet, District Eleven
Earlier, there had been two bombs dropped, or I assumed. It had freaked LeShay and Trace out and made Valerina on edge, but there had been no more dropped, so I'd managed to calm them down enough to get some sleep. One of the biggest threats was killed off today….I figure most of the tributes will sleep if they can, so I decide to give everyone else a night off of watching. But the next explosion wakes us all up instantly, and adrenaline starts pumping and racing deep within my veins.
Now the real bombing is beginning.
"We have to go," I jump to my feet, sliding the knife I've been gripping each night in my sleep into the holster on my right hip.
"Go where?" Valerina demands, her voice thick with fear and the shock of being jerked out of sleep so suddenly.
"I don't know," I reply, my mind racing. There really is no safe place….so we just have to start running as far as we can from where the bomb are dropping.
Another explosion makes the ground quake and crack beneath us. This one was closer to our small 'pack', and I turn to the west and start running as fast as I can. It's not like I don't care for my allies….but I have to get home myself. I know LeShay has a baby to care for and Val has her little sisters, but maybe someone can adopt those. My entire family is gone, and our adoption center sucks…there is nobody left to take care of Emmaliegh and Jackson.
Another bomb shakes to where we were running, and I spin on my heel, heading to where the bomb the bomb that dropped right before that one fell, to the east. It's unlikely that they will drop one on the same place for a minute, at least, and I am heading there when Val grabs my arm.
"Where are you going?!" she demands, and Trace and LeShay screech to a halt from where they'd been following her.
"To the safest place possible," there is no time to explain, and I jerk my arm free of her grip, heading again for the east….but another bomb drops where I was about to take us.
"Their targeting us!" LeShay screams, gripping onto Trace's arm, even though he can't protect her anymore than I can.
My mind starts racing and swirling and spinning with idea, possibilities, anything solid to use that we will make it through the night. I would prefer to be in the trees, simply because jumping and climbing are my specialties, and I am faster in that way than I am on my feet. But bombs hit those first….and then I remember the Cornocopia. The tributes that were staying there may or may not still be there, but if they bomb it, they might have cleared out, or maybe fear would make them flee to the woods.
It's not likely they would bomb there, anyway.
"We have to get to the Cornocopia," now I grab Valerina's arm, "come on, we have to run."
And we do….or at least I did. Every muscle in my legs screams and complains, my bones ache and groan, sweat pours out what little body moisture I managed to preserve within myself. But the adrenaline rush keeps me going forward as the bomb shells fall to close for comfort or safety, but far enough that the worst that happens is that we get knocked off our feet.
Valerina is about at my pace in the speed and ground we cover, but the other two are lagging. Trace is larger, so he is slower, even though I can tell he is straining with everything he has to keep up with we two. LeShay keeps stumbling, gasping in pain and clutching her abodomen. But we can't worry about them….and as much as I hate to admit it, the weak will die.
And it's obvious now more than ever who the weak ones are in our alliance.
"Airmet!" I hear Trace's scream, and it takes everything I've got to not turn around….until I hear the whizz of a bomb being released from somewhere in the sky.
I see it for a split second: The glimpse of silver and black, and the Capitol's small seal on the side as it comes closer. I scream a scream that was so shrill and terrified, I can't believe such a sound could emerge from me. I dive forward, it's the only thing left I can do, and find myself in the tree I meant to hide behind.
And then the bomb hits the ground.
Annalisa, District Two
The other tributes are defiantly in a frenzy now that this nasty trick of the Gamemakers is being played on us so suddenly, and I can't say I'm not having a minor freak attack myself. But it is important to keep your head as much as you can in a life-or-death situation, especially when can't do anything to stop it or increase your odds of living. One place they will more than likely not bomb is the edge of the arena, and I somehow ran into that on the eighth day in this arena while I was looking for other tributes to finish off.
And I head for there now.
Sontal, District One
I am glad that Shimmer's dead….that gives me one less to kill off. Besides, she was annoying….even more than the crazy District Eight girl who is now clutching me for all she's worth. She's seventeen and I'm twelve….she's nuts, alright, and probably a pedophile, too. She has seriously started to freak me out, and now there is a bomb going on.
I've got to get out of here, and she won't be coming with me.
If her cannon fired, I couldn't hear it through the explosions coming from all around me. All I know is that I left her with a sword gash through her body, lying on her side, with her empty eyes staring after me endlessly as I ran for my ever-loving life.
Amelia, District Eight
Boom, boom. Boom, boom.
That's what I was hearing. They are loud booms, and they sound cool. They remind me of drums, the way they fall in rhythm with each other, and how the pretty lights make the sky pretty blue, red, and black.
The cute boy suddenly stabbed me in the ribs. The slash makes me feel unhappy, in pain. And then he starts to run away, and I reach for him. Where is he going? But he will come back. He is too cute not to come back to me. I will just wait and sleep for a while until he does. I even have a nice little lullaby to help me sleep to as I close my eyes.
Boom, boom. Boom, boom.
BOOM!
Carsonlie, District Twelve
Ever since her death, I've been allies with the District Ten girl, Natashia. It was always like she would stab me any time she decided she was tired of my silent grief and mourning, but it never came to that in the two days we knew each other. She killed a couple of squirrels and we ate lightly, talking about our families and what would've done if we came home, since we both pretty much knew at this point neither of us would be returning alive.
The point when you make allies and actually become friends is the point you lose hope.
She'd told me that without even speaking…it was obvious by the way she was at peace with seemingly everything, despite how angry she obviously was at having my sister and I around her. She'd talked about her unavoidable death before, anyway, and she didn't seem like she resented that anymore. And neither did I.
We weren't moving, even if they were bombing us. This would just be another way to die in this cruel, endless arena and the even longer Games. How long had we both survived? Nine days? Not bad, I guess. I don't really know what the Gamemakers were expecting, but whatever.
Junerose…..poor little innocent Junerose, my baby sister….she was gone, and with her she took my soul.
I collapse suddenly. The life is leaving me, but it is not sudden. I felt myself dying ever since the ice rain hit…and the wounds the District One girl gave me just contributed to it. I wink at Natashia in a last attempt of flirting….I might have fallen in love with her at another place, another time, even though I already have. But now I close my eyes and she winks back at me with a small smirk of acceptance I am truly gone now.
And I'm just fine with that, too.
BOOM!
