Now what? Koter and the tributes from 10 were the only people left in the arena. Something needed to happen, quickly, or the Capitol would get bored. I needed to do something, have some sort of purpose, so I decided to walk to the Career camp and see if they had any medicine. I quickly packed up all of my belongings, not including what I had used to construct the trap, and followed the river, knowing something was bound to happen before I got there.
Something did. It took a while for me to notice, but because I was standing by the river I saw that the water level had been slowly rising. I turned and noticed that the snow was now showing patches of dirt, and it seemed altogether thinner than it was before. The river was running faster than it had been. Was this the Gamemaker's grand finale? A flood, or a tidal wave, or something? That would be a problem. My swimming skills were not the greatest.
Before I could consider anything further, I heard a violent rushing of water and began to run as fast as I could away from the source of the noise. I didn't think, I just ran. All I knew was that any second, I could be consumed by water, and I would probably drown if I couldn't get my bearings fast enough. My only hope would be if I could get up a tree – but I didn't want to stop running for anything. I began to feel flecks of water hitting the back of my head. I had no choice now – swim, climb, or die.
I threw myself to the side and slammed into a tree, quickly wrapping my arms around it. Right as I did this, a wall of water slammed into me and nearly pulled me off of the trunk. I squeezed my eyes and mouth shut and clutched the tree tighter. I managed to keep my hold as the freezing, numbing water surrounded me, and I slowly crawled up the trunk, trying to get back out of the flood. My lungs were starting to burn and I needed to get further up the trunk before I ran out of air.
I was inching up the trunk, lamenting my heavy backpacks but not wanting to let them be washed away. My thoughts began to blur into one single pressing order – Up. I shoved my head out of the water and gulped air, thinking of nothing but filling my lungs until I could breathe normally again. I continued making my way up the tree, now dripping wet and unaware of which direction I was facing. Once my entire body was out of the water that was still rushing, I looked around. Any landmarks that might have helped me were under the seven-feet-deep lake the arena had become. The only thing to do now was jump from tree to tree and try to find another tribute.