Day 2: Close Encounter in the Treetops
x
What he meant was
we are all like the saints on my neighbors' lawns-
whose plaster shoulders & noses,
chipped cloaks & tiaras, have to be bundled
in plastic sheets, each winter, blanketed
from the wind & the cold. That was what he meant,
though I couldn't know it then.
'God the Broken Lock', David Rivard
x
Yuna Watanabe, District 6
"So, this far south - at least, I'm guessing we're south. Statice, you think we're near District 11, right? And that's… south, I think. Anyway, wherever we are, it's warmer here than in most of District 7. This far wherever, the kind of water hemlock we're looking for is called 'Cicuta maculata', and it's very poisonous," Fidan explains. "The flowers look like umbrellas of smaller white flowers and you shouldn't eat them."
"Really?" Statice says, cracking a smile. "Because storing the poison flowers in my mouth was my plan. Back to the drawing board I guess."
"Don't be flip," I tell him, keeping my tone even to hide my annoyance. "What else should we know, Fidan? How big, where do we look?"
"They can be anywhere the ground is moist in the time it blossoms - spring and summer. Even in the water. It's really likely there'll be some around, it's a big problem in the swamps where there's logging. Water hemlock looooves swamps."
Fidan's storytelling is really delightful, and she gets so excited talking about things she knows a lot about, even toxic things. There's something gentle, innocent, and very young about her that you wouldn't expect from how competent she is with climbing trees and getting work done. I guess she's only fifteen - though that's easy to forget, since most outer-district kids are small and stringy, regardless of age.
Even in District 6, it's impossible to completely avoid that… divide, because for all the effort my parents have always put into keeping me and Mari and Hideo away from that side of the world, reality seeps through the cracks. Spending my study time in the hospital while I waited for them to come out of board meetings, there were people who looked like us, but also nothing like us. Sallow and bony and old before their time.
Young women, like Fidan, who could have been anywhere from ten to twenty years old.
I never hung around long enough to talk to anyone whose presence made me question my place in the world, my fine dinners and healthy siblings and wealthy parents. And sometimes it feels like that, with Fidan - like I'm listening to her through a pane of distorted glass and will never completely understand why she is the way she is.
So I'm trying not to… project that onto her and the way I think about her, but I'm sure I am, and she deserves better, but I'm what she has.
"We should probably start by heading further from the fringes of the forest," Fidan explains. "And on foot, of course - you miss a lot of things on the first sweep through the trees, even if you can cover more ground that way. Actually, I could probably go ahead and do a sweep, if you and Statice could follow from the ground. Might get lucky."
"Anything but staying here," I say, trying not to grumble.
While the massive oak tree is a refuge from the barrenness of the damp grey beach, it's swelteringly hot this far up in the thick treetops, oppressively humid in a way that makes my shirt and loose pants stick unpleasantly to my skin, and the air here thrums with insects. I'm practically covered in bites.
Moving also would be a good way to defray the risk of whatever the Gamemakers are planning to spice up our experience. I'm sure we've gotten some attention by now for vocally planning to go after the trainee camp, and I've been on-edge ever since I voiced those intentions out loud.
It would be just like the Gamemakers to throw a trainee pair at us right away to see if we're willing to put our money where our mouths are, and I honestly doubt that I can count on much support from Statice or Fidan on that front. Statice is barely a step better than a collaborator, and in Fidan's case, what brought me to her in the first place - her kindness - becomes a weakness when the bodies start falling.
But of course, we're not ready for a fight. None of us. What we're planning isn't a fight.
That's the thing about chemicals, about poison - you don't need tremendous manpower or bulky muscles to make big things happen, just to understand the way elements of a living thing's cells bind with another molecular configuration. Cicutoxins antagonize inhibitory neurotransmitters that act throughout the nervous system and within pancreatic cells, disrupting the ability of those cells to mitigate excitation. Cellular hyperactivity results in seizures, though deaths as a result of cicutoxin consumption are generally a result of asphyxiation when the hyperactive nervous system interferes with breathing.
There were more cases of cicutoxin poisoning before the electric fence that skirts the boundary of the district was consistently active. Hungry people thinking to augment their families' dinners with what looked, to the untrained eye, like many similar edible roots. That's the tragedy of it - the roots, which look to be the most edible piece of the plant, carry the highest concentration of the toxin. Some instructors describe macabre scenes to which they would be called, back in the day - whole families wiped out by a pot of soup, found around their dinner table in pools of their own vomit.
Now, cicutoxin poisoning is mostly attributed to active attempts to kill someone - it's hard to come by, but some traditional apothecaries retain preserved samples for the right price.
I wouldn't recognize the plant by sight - the public service announcements about poisonous plants don't use pictures or otherwise explain how to discern what is and isn't safe. Just blanket warnings and graphic images of death. Don't even try to get clever and bypass the fence. Who knows what kind of tragic death is waiting for you and your loved ones beyond the boundary?
Swatting away yet another buzzing insect, I hope I'll make it long enough to follow through on my big talk.
All of this relies on us being able to find the plant in the first place, and while I want to believe Fidan's reassurances that water hemlock should grow extensively in this sort of environment, I have no idea if the Gamemakers are on our side or not when it come to this plan. If they want us to succeed, we'll probably find the telltale umbrellas of little white flowers within a half hour of searching.
If not, though…
This has to work. If there's not water hemlock, we'll try something else. I'll try something else.
Some of what's motivating me is guilt. Guilt over Lucas, who I couldn't protect, and fear that the same thing will happen to Fidan, another innocent person who doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as anyone here by choice. Someone whose family would never have been poisoned in their desperation to forage for food - who left behind a warm bed and a stocked fridge and a future, in favor of ripping the futures from others' bodies.
It seems poetic, that the last people who would have slumped around a pot of hemlock stew had they only stayed at home will be the ones to spasm and die a poor man's death.
"So, do we just want the roots? Can we touch the stems, or do we need, like, gloves? We could maybe pick the plants with the leaves from other plants to keep from touching it," Statice is musing aloud, breaking my focus.
Suddenly, Fidan claps her hand over his mouth.
"Stop," she hisses. "I hear something. Big."
I haven't heard a thing, but I've been deep in my own thoughts - now, without the background of Statice and Fidan's question-answer session, I focus on the noises of the swamp forest around me.
Nothing obvious.
But Fidan is frozen, except for her eyes, which dart around - she's scanning the treetops first, then the forest floor, settling on a location that looks no different to me than the rest of it, still shushing Statice with her hand.
"We need to get out," she whispers, barely audible. "Now."
"How?" I mouth. "What's happening?"
She holds up one finger - District 1.
With fresh eyes, I look where she was focusing earlier, and I see the lines of his jaw and brow - the massive trainee from District 1, apparently alone. But who knows what their hunting strategies are? His partner, or another trainee, could be anywhere. They could be closing in on us right now.
And here we are, stuck in a tree - only Fidan able to escape without either laboriously climbing down or breaking her neck.
Statice and I are sitting ducks.
I remember, vividly, how the Career pack last year finished off the female tribute from District 11. Unable to extract her from the tree in which she had made camp… they burned the tree, and her with it.
"Here's the plan," Fidan whispers, finally releasing Statice now that she's convinced he's fully shut up. "I'll get the two of you down. I don't think he's seen us. Hide yourselves somewhere you can run away from if it goes bad. Don't make a single noise. Don't even breathe. I'll go the opposite direction, through the trees, with our packs. So I'll seem like more than one person. I'll break branches as I go, throw some down if necessary, and once I'm far enough away, I'll disappear and circle back. Wait as close to here as possible, so I'll be able to find you again with the supplies after - okay?"
We all pause for a long second - waiting to see if he's heard her explanation.
"What if he has a bow?" Statice whispers. "If he takes you out, he's onto the ruse and he has our supplies."
"That's a risk we have to take," Fidan explains grimly. "It'll give you time to run. I'll scream so you know I'm down."
I'm nodding along with her - it makes sense - but Statice looks horrified, even… sad.
"That was what Dasheen did," he says softly. "I just don't want that to happen again."
Fidan shrugs.
"Take it or leave it. If we stay here, he'll find us. Even if he doesn't kill us now, he'll bring friends back. We have to act," she says.
I've been mostly ignoring the conversation, keeping my eyes trained on the boy from District 1 as he searches the treetops.
Abruptly, his eyes meet mine.
Terror grips me like an icy hand punched through my ribcage.
"It's time to go," I say. "He's made us."
Fidan nods. "Give me the packs and do exactly what I say."
Obediently, I hand over my pack and Statice does the same. As quietly as possible, she slings both over her bony shoulders.
"Climb down there. Fast," she says, gesturing at the lowest branch of the oak tree - still a good six feet in the air.
Statice and I, working together, had trouble getting up to that branch. I don't see how we're going to quickly climb down without breaking a bone or drawing the attention of the District 1 boy and anyone with him.
"I'm going to help lower you down," she says as we climb, following us carefully.
I can't stop glancing back at the District 1 trainee - but he seems to have disappeared.
Once we're out on the limb, Fidan anchors herself to the branch.
"Hold onto my hands and swing down," she instructs me. "Don't worry, you won't hurt me. Once you're dangling, let go. It's only a foot or two down."
"I trust you," I say, kneeling on the thick branch, taking her arms, inhaling deeply, and rolling into the seven feet of empty space beneath me.
She catches my weight, and I feel my fall change to a swing - letting go as soon as I feel both of our arms straighten.
Statice, shortly, lands beside me. Before we can take a second to catch our breath, a distinctly non-human noise breaks the relative silence of the forest.
A roar. Something huge. A mutt?
Fidan looks down from the tree, mouths 'hide!' and disappears.
We've landed in the mud, and my first impulse is to scoop some of it up and rub it on my arms and face, as Statice takes my cue and does the same.
"Here," here says, voice below even a whisper, dabbing more mud onto parts of my face and neck that I've missed.
Though I stiffen at the touch - I do not like being touched - I remember seeing him at the camouflage station with his partner back during training and I don't object.
From the corner of my eye, I see movement - the District 1 trainee has been driven back towards the tree where we were sheltered by an enormous reptile mutt. Lightning-quick for such an ungainly-shaped creature, all fifteen feet of the thing pure muscle beneath black armor, it lunges at him, hissing and bellowing at intervals.
Already, the trainee's leg has been badly lacerated by the thing's long, cone-shaped teeth - he's limping badly, drawing back from the thing.
I can't shake the feeling that we would have been much safer in the tree, but the mutt's purpose is single-minded. Its brilliant yellow eyes are full of hate and locked on its quarry. Not us. The tall boy wielding a short-bladed knife and nothing else.
Relief floods my body - no bow and arrow. From overhead, I can hear Fidan continuing with the plan despite the mitigating factor of the mutt in the equation.
Should we run, hide better? I turn to Statice to ask, but find him still as a statue apart from a tremor in his hands.
He must be terrified. More than I am, seeing the guy who killed Dasheen… he said it was District 1, and here's District 1. At least it seems like the guy is alone, so far. And based on how the fight is going, he may not be that long for this world.
While, at first, the trainee's strategy seemed to be keeping away from the mutt, it stuck with him even as he tried to navigate through the close-set trees. He's only about twenty feet away, now, obscured by the thick vegetation, though it's clear when the mutt launches itself at him, again and again, exactly where the two are.
I'm determined to see these people, if they can even be called that, as a threat and nothing else. But it's harder when they're right in front of me, perversely. It's hard to see someone who looks so human, struggles like a human, as anything but. I try to imagine him foaming, bleeding from the mouth as a result of something I've done - something I've put in his food or water - and the thought turns my stomach, not just because I can smell his blood from here.
Though I know I can't say anything - have to keep quiet so he won't direct his attention to us if he survives - I turn back to Statice to see if he's having the same sort of thoughts I am.
Behind the mud smeared across his face, though, behind his glasses, his expression and his eyes are as hard and cold as I've ever seen them.
There's a difference, I guess, between generally knowing these people are responsible for the deaths of Lucas, Oliver, other relative innocents… and having seen this specific young man cut your district partner's throat.
I wonder if he killed Lucas.
Maybe he did.
The image of him choking on his own blood and bile seems less objectionable now.
Through the trees, the struggle against the massive reptile continues. The monstrous mutt is freakishly fast, but the boy from District 1 is almost superhumanly fast himself. He still isn't winning. Suddenly, the mutt has him by his shoulder, teeth sunk into him - the weight of the thing pulls him to the ground, and while his silver knife is red from the thing's blood, it's single-mindedly rolling him in the mud, seemingly ready to drag him away to drown or eat him.
Against all odds, blood streaming from his shoulder and the severe wounds on his leg, the District 1 boy continues to fight. It's just so much bigger than he is, though - only the lack of space between the trees and the thick underbrush is preventing the reptile mutt from dragging him deeper into the swamp and finishing him off for good.
The two of them - the boy and the mutt - seem anachronously big. They don't fit in this part of the arena.
At the angle at which the mutt has him, the boy can't quite get his knife into its throat or anywhere useful - he gouges uselessly at its armoured head, but his blade can't find purchase, can't penetrate the thick skin or the hard bone of the skull.
Statice and I are holding our breath. Our initial fear was that the boy would survive and complete his assumed objective of hunting us down, but… how could he have gotten to us, up in the tree, with only his short-bladed knife? What were his intentions?
It seems we may be in greater danger from the mutt, and now, we're… on the ground, not far from the action, no longer in the safety of the oak's branches.
What happens if it kills him?
Fidan is somewhere in the treetops, and she must be thinking the same thing - our plan to lead him away is useless if the mutt wins this conflict. It won't follow Fidan on a dance through the treetops - it'll whet its appetite with the trainee from District 1 and then Statice and I will be on the menu.
At least, I think that's what she's thinking, because suddenly, from the boughs overhead, someone - can't be anyone other than Fidan - is throwing a broken-off chunk of a branch down at the reptile mutt.
It's a small thing to do, though she follows it up with another fist-size piece of splintered branch.
With the second projectile, the reptile releases its death grip on the boy's shoulder to hiss at the source of the attack, and the trainee wastes no time in rolling away just enough to bury his knife repeatedly into the thing's fleshy yellow throat, so many times and so deep that the reptile mutt's head lolls uselessly to the side.
For a moment, all we can hear is his ragged breathing. He's still badly bleeding, shoulder mangled, leg nearly useless.
He's waiting, I realize, for whoever saved him from the trees to swing down and finish him off.
I'm waiting for that, too - surely, Fidan is of the same mind I am - these people are dangerous, one less trainee is one less obstacle to survival! For all she knows, he killed Oliver! He was going to kill us, he would have in a second!
Statice grinds his teeth, keeping his silence, though I can almost hear him screaming at her to just do it.
Fidan holds her ground.
Slowly, the trainee - practically disfigured from the attack, he can barely stand - picks himself up from the mud, retrieves his knife.
The distraction seems to have worked. He scans the trees for us. Or maybe he's looking for Fidan, the girl who just saved his life, the sick bastard…
"Thank you," he says, voice heavy with pain.
I remember that I used to think he was very handsome.
"We drove a predator into these woods this morning," he adds. "Be careful."
Statice stiffens from next to me - I half expect him to rush out and, what, try to kill this guy? With his brass knuckles? But the trainee, as badly wounded as he is, has his knife now. We've missed our window. Or rather, Fidan has.
I wonder what he means with his warning, but Fidan seems to have no intention of asking for a clarification, and as long as Statice and I stay silent, it seems we'll make it out of this encounter alive and with the upper hand.
Clearly in tremendous pain, the boy from District 1 feels out his legs, takes a few shaky steps, scans the trees one last time for his rescuer, and disappears.
There's a long and pregnant silence during which I can still hear, focusing hard, his haphazard movement through the brush.
From the trees, Fidan seems to materialize next to us, making me jump.
"We need to go," she says urgently, returning our packs. "In case he sends anyone back to find us. I don't think he will, but we need to clear out anyway."
Before we can respond, something spirals through the trees, landing in the mud in front of Fidan. A pristine silver package.
She looks at us questioningly and tears it open - revealing a thick-bladed hunting knife, about as long as my forearm from the tip of the blade to the base of the handle.
"Thanks, Saxaul," she whispers up to the sky.
"What's he saying?" Statice asks, seemingly having swallowed his rage, though his voice still comes out thick with frustration. "Go after him?"
"I don't think so. This isn't much bigger than the one the trainee was carrying. I don't think we'd win that fight. Do you think we could eat that mutt?"
"Only one way to find out," I say. "How fresh are your dissection skills, Statice?"
"It's quadrupedal, can't be that different from a pig," he says. "I'll give it a go."
"Who says there's nothing useful about being a good biology student?" I comment, a little wryly, as he takes the blade from Fidan and begins to inspect the massive corpse.
Fidan still looks a little antsy. I decide not to push her on why she just let the boy walk away, but she seems to realize I'm looking at her a little funny, and she sighs.
"I couldn't do it. He… we let him go, so now he owes us a little. If we'd tried to kill him and failed, he could have done some real damage, and then we'd have all the Careers coming down on us… it was just, just the right choice, to keep us alive," she says quietly, not meeting my eyes.
I don't say anything, not disgusted or anything, but… unsettled. Not sure if Fidan is being quite honest.
"I also… I've never killed anyone, Yuna, and I don't want to be a killer. I'm sorry if you think that makes me weak, I just really… I can't just… Yuna, please don't be mad at me, it seems like you're mad at me. I couldn't just watch someone die like that."
Her voice has taken on a distressed timbre, and when she looks up, her eyes are big and wet. Stress, fear, frustration.
I can't blame her. We're all so scared.
Wordlessly, I hold out my muddy arm for a half-hug as we watch Statice struggle with the mutt's thick skin.
"It's okay," I tell her. "You have to do what's right for you. I understand."
Just don't get in my way. I think it, but I don't say it, because that doesn't seem like a comforting prospect.
Fidan doesn't have to kill anyone. I will, though. In her position, not only would I have let the mutt have that boy, damn the consequences - I would have killed him myself, if I had any way to do so. And hell, he was so half-dead, falling out of the tree and landing on him probably would have finished him off.
I don't say any of that. Just pat her back and wonder if, when it comes down to it, she'll be able to make enough of a decisive choice to help me out. Whether I can count on her.
She's so talented, has so much to offer, but I wish I had a way to tell her that's not enough to survive. That these people, that boy she saved, will take advantage of her soft heart, they'll rip it out of her chest if she lets them. I wish I had a way to explain that to her. But I can't, so I don't.
"The meat looks edible," Statice declares.
With her head still resting on my chest, Fidan whispers 'great' and then drags herself to her feet.
"Get it while it's still warm," he adds, and I notice that he's somehow completely separated the leathery and heavily armored skin from the mutt's tail, slicing strips of the pinkish-red meat from underneath that looks almost like an actual cut from a butcher shop.
"Sounds… appetizing," I say doubtfully.
"Beats starving," he sighs, popping a strip of the meat into his mouth and grimacing. "Delicious. Like… raw, rubbery chicken."
At least that makes one problem down - the food issue. Then we'll have to get out of this area, cover our tracks, and find somewhere new to hide - and plan.
I haven't given up. I won't give up. The trainees may all have survived this encounter, but the next time, I swear to any god that's listening, they won't. I won't let them. For Lucas, for Oliver, for Fidan and her gentle heart. I'll protect her, even if she won't protect herself.
For now, though… I accept a strip of the meat from Statice, and try to imagine it's the sashimi that Namie sometimes makes. It's not especially palatable.
I should be used to it by now.
None of this is.
x
I aaaaaalmost skipped this chapter in favor of writing the aftermath, but then I was like, that's irresponsible narration just because I don't want to write an alligator attack. Growing up in the south of the US you learn a lot of strategies for surviving an alligator/crocodile attack but especially that they're generally very nice animals that you shouldn't antagonize. That said, they are terrifying strong and fast and the running joke is that the best way to get away from an angry alligator is to have a slow friend.
Also, I've been coagulating all of my old plot threads into a coherent narrative lately and now I have a good idea of how the next few chapters are going to work and where I'm ultimately going with the story! Which is very exciting. Stay tuned for Cora and Marcus' return to the Career camp, Renata's first real life-or-death fight, an actual encounter between the outer-district trio and a trainee hunting pair, and Dion and Bridget continuing to do what they do!
Please consider reviewing if you're enjoying the story, though lord knows I'll keep writing regardless.
