CHAPTER 36 NATO
As Raven gathers up the nuts and fruit that had fallen out of his hands I exchange tense looks with Lucya. We've been crossing swords ever since we got into the arena, but for now we call a silent truce to worry about the threat looming somewhere in the maze. For the first time since we entered the arena, her blue eyes glow with fear. I realize that she's only brave and fearless in the face of immediate danger. But being unsure or unknowing terrifies her. On that level, we're the same person.
"What was that?" Raven asks, having poured his food back into the small, silver packet. His hand is jittery and several nuts miss the opening of the bag. He doesn't even bother to pick them up.
"I don't know," Lucya admits. "Um. Something that buzzes before attacking?" She shuffles her feet and turns to me. "Nato, do you have any ideas?"
For a second I think it's a joke or an insult, but the look on her face convinces me otherwise. "We can't even be sure it was something. For all we know, it could have been another Tribute. Maybe it was some kind of muttation..." I can't figure anything out. The noises before the Tribute's death sounded different than anything I've ever heard before.
After some silence, Raven tries to get our minds off the thing by asking, "So what now? Where do we go?"
"Probably that way," Lucya says, pointing to our left. "We should probably get away from whatever that was." She looks at me as if for confirmation.
"That's the thing," I groan, leaning against the white wall. "Sound is distorted in this arena. We hear everything like it's right next to us and then other things like they're miles away. No sound seems to be coming from where it actually originated."
Lucya looks down at her feet. "Just another way that the Gamemakers are trying to confuse us." She's right. Nothing makes sense in this maze, which, I'm guessing, is exactly how it's supposed to be.
"How about, for now, we just go back the way we came from?" Raven asks shyly. It doesn't seem like a very good idea to me, but I can't think of any better strategies so I agree halfheartedly. This time, Raven leads, his small hands wrapped around the boomerang he has taken a liking to. Lucya draws her sword, just in case, and I see no reason not to hold my own wooden spear. Raven turns the corner that we came from and stops. I look over his shoulder. In front of us stands a polished white wall. And just ten minutes ago we had passed through a hallway in that exact location.
"Are you sure you went the right way, Raven?" Lucya asks, confused.
"Yeah," Raven defends himself. "I remember, it was ri—"
"He's right," I say. "We did come from here."
Lucya crosses her arms. "Then how come it's a dead end?"
There's only one explanation. I don't see how the Gamemakers could possibly keep up with it in such a big arena. "The maze is changing," I say simply. "They're modifying it to beat us off our courses and make it easier to get lost."
Raven groans. "How are we going to find our way?"
"We won't," Lucya says grimly. "We're just going to wander about until the Gamemakers change the tunnels to lead us into battle with some other Tribute. They're basically controlling which way we go."
Suddenly I'm filled with a new kind of determination. "Not if I can help it," I say, turning around. "Let's go." I say it like a command, but not even Lucya protests. She doesn't want to admit it, but even she knows I'm the only one out of the three of us that can navigate the maze. The two of them follow me as I dart through the intricate twists and turns of the arena. Every once in a while we stop to eat or drink from one of the two bottles of water I obtained from the Cornucopia. After several hours we're all exhausted and I feel that the lights in the maze will be shutting off soon.
We find another of those small rooms and decide to stay there for the night. I sit down on the ground and the others sit in front of me. Raven finishes his food and I look into my own silver packet. There are two dried plums inside. I look up at Lucya, who looks like she's really regretting eating all her food this morning. I turn the open package to her.
"You can have it," I smile.
She picks out the two plums and pops them into her mouth. "Thanks, Nato." I store the three empty bags in the large, white backpack and rest my head on it, waiting for the lights to go off.
But they don't. Instead, we hear a quiet sobbing intermingled with small screams. The three of us sit up. It sounds like a girl. I exchange looks with my allies as we listen to her scream. She sounds like she's pleading with someone, but cries of pain break up her sentences. Everything becomes clear when I hear loud laughing. One of the voices is Indigo's.
"What's going on?" Raven asks.
I bury my head between my knees. "The Careers; they're torturing her," I rasp. Another scream from the girl causes a wet tear to run down my nose. "They're playing with their food before they eat it."
It goes on for almost ten minutes before I hear Indigo yell out, "Let me have her!" There's a sound like the drawing of an arrow and then the girl stops screaming. A cannon sounds just as the lights begin to darken. I lie on my back and wipe the salt from my face. Raven is whimpering from his sleeping place a couple of feet away. Even Lucya seems horrified. We all knew that the Hunger Games would end in death for some kids, but this is different. It only shows that the Careers are in it for more than survival.
The Capitol seal flashes above our heads and the Panem anthem plays. I look up into the ceiling. The first face shown is that of the male Tribute from District Eight, Ray. He must have been the one that died this morning. I haven't stopped thinking about what had killed him, and if it'll end up killing me. After that, a girl's face shows up on the dark ceiling. Her name was Foxtrot and she was from District Ten. As I imagine the horror that her friends and family had to watch back in her District, I rub Delta's pendent between my fingers, remembering my own home. Her face disappears and is followed by a huge number 5. Five years of security would be granted to each of us if we all just stopped fighting right now. Knowing how low the chances of that are, I roll over and try to complete the laborious task of falling asleep.