Chapter Thirty-Six.
Hitting The Forcefield.
*Finnick's POV*
There's a sharp zapping sound followed by bright yellow sparks that engulf Anastasia's body which is flung backwards from the forcefield which sends the rest of us flying backwards to the ground as well. Once I had managed to gather myself off the ground, I rush over to where Anastasia's body lies motionless in a web of thin vines. "Anastasia?" There's a faint smell of singed hair, I call her name again with a little shake but she's unresponsive. My fingers fumble across his lips where there's no warm breath despite moment ago she was panting. I press my ears against her chest, to the same spot where she always rested her head on my chest when I cuddled her from a nightmare, promising to protect her. The exact point I know I will hear the strong and stead beat of her heart. Instead, I find silence.
"Anastasia!" the scream for my district partner is ripped from my lungs before I can stop it as my hands shake her shoulders harder, I even resort to slapping her face in desperation for her to wake up but it's no use. Her heart has failed and I'm slapping and shaking emptiness. To ensure my suspicions are correct, I place my first and second finger on a certain flesh point of her neck where the pulse normally thrives. It isn't, there's nothing.
Ignoring Peeta's questions about Anastasia's state, I pinch her nose close and tilt her mouth open so I can blow air down her throat into her lungs. Willow doesn't attempt to interject because she knows I will react harshly to anyone who attempts to stop me saving her life plus I know she would enjoy seeing Anastasia die. I am forced to pump down on the section over her heart with the heels of my hands over the top surface of her jumpsuit because the zip is down the back and moving her would waste precious time – plus there's a good chance her brother and son could be watching, exposing her naked chest is disrespectful – there's a very set rhythm and method to what I'm attempting to do, but I will save her.
It surprises me when my own heart picks up speed and begins to palpitate incredibly quickly as I continue to pump her chest and breath down her throat. The sight of Anastasia completely lifeless makes me panic beyond belief, I cannot let her die, she's too important. I've known her a small portion of her life and yet I have better relationship with her than Anastasia's own mother. Flickers of emotions that I haven't felt for years begin to rise up in my chest as agonising minutes drag past as my hopes diminish, that's around the time that I'm almost deciding that it's too late, that Anastasia's dead but I cannot think about that, I can feel her in my head and chest, that light she seems to protect when she smiles or looks at you a certain way. She has no idea the effect she can have. The feel of her in my arms whilst I cuddle her during the night as I try to convince her she's safe and everything will be okay. And that final moment we had together in the living quarters replays in my head as I blow into her mouth, the kiss was a spur of the moment and I wasn't sure how it was suppose to go however I kind of expected her to kiss me back but she didn't. Anastasia was the first human being to refuse me, I keep trying to make up excuses for the action, I've put it down to the overprotective side of me wanting to do any and everything to keep Anastasia alive and feeling like she is needed because she is. I need her, Michael needs her and her son needs her.
Unexpectedly, Anastasia gives a small cough, and move backwards giving her some space as I wipe away strands of her damp, brown hair from her forehead before finding the pulse drumming against my fingers at her neck. Her thick black lashes flutter open revealing dilated pupils, thin coloured iris' and bloodshot eye whites, as Anastasia's eyes readjust to the surrounds, they flicker to meet mine.
"Be careful," she says weakly, "There's a forcefield up ahead."
Myself and Peeta laughs good heartedly but you can sense disappointment rolling off Willow that Anastasia did not die today. The brought back from the dead teenager sits up without much problem and readjust the weapons on her back the knives in her holsters.
"It's similar to the forcefield that prevents jumpers on the roof of the Training Centre." Anastasia's voice is croaky but she appears to be fine which is confusing considering the huge electric shock she received. "I'm okay, just a little shaken that's all." she tells us batting away my hands and regaining herself to her feet to pick up a group of three throwing knives that had fallen free from her holster.
"You were dead! Your heart stopped!" Willow bursts out at Anastasia who looks a little taken back by her ally.
Anastasia raises her eyebrows and replies snidely, Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you."
Willow huffs angrily but Peeta brushes her aside, "How are you?" he asks her, "Do you think you can move on?"
I feel irritate and annoyed at my allies tone towards Anastasia, she isn't a child so I'm not sure why he insists on speaking to her like she's five however I re-frame from snapping at him, I would prefer Anastasia to rest so I simply speak before she has the chance, "No, she really should rest." I urge, "We don't know the effects the shocks might have."
"So, you want to set up camp here then?" Peeta asks.
Anastasia's eyes flicker between myself and Peeta like she is trying to figure something out but couldn't figure out what, so instead she just shakes her head. "I don't think that's a good idea," she answers, "Staying here, with no water, no protection. I feel all right, really. If we could just go slow."
"Slowly would be better than not at all." Willow replies.
Before we head off, we all do a quick scan of the arena for a missing throwing knife however Anastasia then remembers that she lost it when she missed her target – Enobaria – at the Cornucopia during the bloodbath. Apart from that, Ana still has a gold axe and a bow and arrow collection still in perfect condition.
"Should I take the lead?" Anastasia asks which earns her an echoing scoff around the entire group which makes her eyebrows sky-rocket into her hairline.
"You're mad." Willow mutters under her breath.
"No, let her," I say because I remember that just at the last second, Anastasia gasping like she had figured something out but her axe was already airborne with no enough space between her and the forcefield to divert the hit. "You knew it was there, but only realised at the last second." she nods. "But how did you know?"
Anastasia nibbles at her bottom lip, knowing that giving up her secret of recognising a forcefield could be dangerous. I'm not sure if the Gamemakers where aware of her ability to locate them but it was a very valuable piece of information. She doesn't know if the Gamemakers will alternate something about the forcefield so she cannot be able to locate it.
"I don't know. It's almost as if I can hear it. Listen." she says, we all become silent but the only sounds we can hear are buzzing of insects, flapping of birds and whispers of breeze in the foliage. "Do you hear it? It sounds like the fence surrounding home." she says, I never thought she would lie to me however it seems that I'm the only one that has picked up on Anastasia's lies.
"I don't hear anything." Willow groans.
Suppressing a grin, Anastasia shrugs, "That's weird." She then walks on along the ridge before the forcefield to her left. I keep close but not too close to draw in wanted attention therefore Peeta goes in front of me. Willow sticks to my side which I prefer because I don't trust her behind me. Anastasia snatches a branch decorated with nuts and throws them at the forcefield ahead of her as we go. It's good she does as well because I have a feeling she's missing patches that indicates the forcefield more often than she's spotting it. Whenever a nut hits the electromagnetic forcefield, there's a puff of smoke before the nut lands, blackened and with a cracked shell, on the ground at her feet.
Watching Anastasia is my main priority, she won't survive another electric shock and with her wandering so close to the forcefield, all she needs to do is loose her footing and it's game over. She keeps walking, tossing her nuts and something catching a glimpse of the forcefield, she tries to press to the left and find a spot where we can break through, get away from the Cornucopia and hopefully find water. But after an hour or so I can tell it's futile and we're not making any progress. I jog forwards slightly passed Peeta to see Anastasia whose face is wet with sweat and she looks exhausted.
"Let's take a break." I suggest.
Willow nods, "I can take another look from above if you want?"
"Good idea." says Peeta before sitting down. Anastasia takes a seat beside him and I sit opposite whilst Willow chooses a tree just a bit higher into the air than the others. We really need to find water soon because if we leave it much longer, dehydration will kick in. Plutarch Heavensbee has certainly shown his level of creativeness with this arena, the middle section made of water but non of it drinkable. The temperature remains a humid degree where it's far too warm to be dry meaning we are constantly living in our own sweat, meaning that rotting would set in through continuous dampness.
Willow returns to the ground looking more disappointed than when she went up. Can't say I blame her, from where we stood on the pedestals, the area looked pretty much identical the entire way across the arena, however I couldn't be certain due to the level we are set at.
"The forcefield has us trapped in a circle. A dome, actually. I don't know how high it goes. There's the Cornucopia, the sea, and then the jungle all around. Very exact. Very symmetrical. But it's not very large." she said.
"Did you see any water?" asks Anastasia.
Willow shook her head, "Only the salt water where we started the Games."
"There must be some other source," says Peeta, frowning, "Or we'll all be dead in a matter of days."
"Well, the foliage is thick. Maybe there are ponds or springs somewhere." Anastasia says doubtfully.
I instinctively feel the Capitol might want these unpopular Games over as soon as possible. I knew for a fact from several of my... clients, that the people of the Capitol where just as pissed off about the announcement of these Games, all of them we worried about the victors returning to the arena especially worried about Peeta Mellark, the idea of him returning to the arena without his one true love Katniss Everdeen was too heart beating for the softies of the Capitol and about Anastasia, I hear about the anger many felt towards her after she volunteered for Annie, others rewarded her for being brave however they all focused on the horrid point she may never see Lucas again.
"There must be drinkable water between the forcefield and the wheel." Peeta insists. We all know what this means. Heading back down. Heading back to the Careers and the bloodshed. All with Anastasia in a less than fighting ability, what if trouble was to accrue? Protecting her and myself wouldn't be an option, Peeta couldn't even protect himself in a fight let alone protect another and Willow, she wouldn't risk the life of another's over hers. Even though she knows the value of Anastasia's life.
We decide to move down the slope a few hundred meters, Peeta sticks to Anastasia's side however he remains a little way behind her to avoid suspicion. Anastasia stays in the lead, occasionally chucking a nut or berry to her left but we're well out of range of the forcefield now. The sun beats down on us, turning the air into steam, playing tricks on our eyes however by mid-afternoon, it's clear Anastasia can't go on but she refuses to speak up. I choose a camp-site about ten meters below the forcefield because we can use it as a weapon by deflecting our enemies into it if attacked during the night – that's if we don't forget where it is by that point – with the help of Peeta, who pulls blades off the sharp grass that grows in two-meters-high tufts. He gives the blades to Anastasia who weaves them together into mats. Willow goes hunting but promises to not to wonder too far, personally, I'm not bothered if she returns or not.
Then, completely out of the blue, Anastasia throws one of the nuts far enough to hit the forcefield and then goes to collect the nut, peals off the blackened shell and pops it into her mouth.
"Spit that out!" I hiss angrily, "That could be poisonous!"
Suddenly, Anastasia entire upper body keels over as she gasps and claws at her throat. I rush over to help but as soon as I press my hand onto her back. The young girl stands bolt upright and quivers with laughter which soon Peeta joins in with. "Got you." she manages to say through her hysteric laughs.
"You bitch." I mumble with annoyance that tints playfulness.
Considering Anastasia had no reaction to the nuts,Peeta suggests harvesting them and goes off to fry as many as he can because we aren't sure if Willow will catch anything out here so this might be the only form of a meal we get today. The weaving of the mats takes as long as it does for Willow to return and despite my negative thoughts, she carries a rather hideous beast in her right hand. It's incredibly ugly with a fuzz of mottled grey fur and two wicked-looking gnawing teeth protruding over it's lower lip. As Willow is gutting and skinning the creature, I am so entranced by the strangeness of this creature, I leave Anastasia in charge of weaving mats and move to watch.
"It's muzzle is wet." I comment looking in closely at the glistening on the creature. Willow traces her long fingers over the creatures mouth and nose before darting off excitedly back to the home tree because like any animal, it's been drinking from a stream meaning there's one close nearby. She is gone for several minutes, however she returns to camp hotter and more frustrated than ever with a grim look on her face that almost fills Anastasia with happiness.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even so much as a dewdrop." she grumbles.
Her face turns oddly surprised when she looks at the new state of the camp-site, Peeta and I have managed to create a hut of sorts out of the grass mats, open on one side but with three walls, a floor and a roof. Anastasia has also plaited several bowls that Peeta has filled with roasted nuts.
"It's got to be out there though. He knew where it was." I say, "He must have been drinking recently before you shot him down."
Willow stiffens, "I swear, I covered every centimetre of ground in a thirty-meter radius."
"Can we eat him?" Peeta asks. "From what I've seen, his meat doesn't look that different from a squirrel's. He should be cooked..." he hesitates, starting a fire out here from nothing would be a huge achievement but then there's the smoke to think about. If what Willow said about the arena not being very big, all the victors are close in the arena, there's no chance of hiding it.
Anastasia has another idea. She takes a cube of rodent meat, skewers it on the tip of a pointed stick and lets it fall into the forcefield. There's a sharp sizzle and the stick flies backwards. The chunk of meat is blackened on the outside but well cooked inside. Peeta slaps her on the back and I bring her in for a one armed hug, Willow lets a small smile form onto her lips.
The white sun sinks in the rosy sky as we gather in the hut. I'm still leery about the nuts however Anastasia seems fine, well, aside from the major electric shock. During my time at my first Hunger Games, I didn't spend any time at the edible-plants station because I was part of the Career Pack, feared by most we knew a lot of the items left at the Cornucopia would be ours, therefore we didn't bother. Now I wish I had because surely there would have been something of the unfamiliar plants surrounding me, and then I might have been able to guess a bit more about where we were heading. Anastasia has been eating the nuts for hours, so I pick one up and take a small bite, it has a mild, slightly sweet flavour that reminds me of a chestnut. I decide it's all right. The rodent's strong and gamey but surprisingly juicy. Honestly, it's not a bad meal for our first meal in the arena. If only we have something to wash it down with.
Peeta asks a lot of questions about the rodent, which we all decide to call a tree rat. How high it was, how long did Willow watch it before she shot, and what was it doing? Willow says she doesn't remember it doing much of anything. Snuffling around for insects or something.
Anastasia's dreading the night, it's almost like she can smell trouble. At least the tightly woven grass offers some protection from whatever slinks across the jungle floor at night. But a short time before the sun slips below the horizon, a pale white moon rises making things just visible enough. Our conversation of who is going to take the first watch trails off because we know what's coming. We position ourselves in a line at the mouth of the hut and Anastasia slips her hand into mine.
A/N: How did you like Finnick's point of view and would you like to read more from his view? I hope this has started to develop curiosity for you - the readers - because as Anastasia lies dead, Finnick lets slip his opinions, thoughts and feels about his district partner. Please review!