Day Two: Frozen Storms

Belle Hatton, Age 16, District Twelve Female Tribute

Day Two brought thundersnow. It wasn't a word, but it was what I was calling the phenomenon bombarding the north section of the arena.

Jessalyn was on watch, but Evangaline and I had woken to the sound of thunder. Outside, the freezing snow still blew. And then lightning illuminated the sky, more thunder following it.

Thundersnow.

It sounded like cannon shots, but I distinguished it from the two cannons that had sounded—one at dawn, one later.

We headed out into it. Jessalyn's idea was to head as far north as we could, cover the most ground, see what was there, and avoid the other tributes.

Evangaline and I agreed.

So we were hiking.

"I know it's… the arena," Jessalyn started at one point, "but it's kind of… beautiful."

I had to agree. I hated the Capitol, I hated the Games, I hated the arena—but the snow lit up by lightning on the mountains, the auroras flashing around the lightning in the white clouds… it was beautiful.

Evangaline gave a shrug. I wanted to encourage Jessalyn to think positive, though, and so said, "It is."

"But…" Jessalyn trailed off, "what are those things?" She pointed to the section ahead of us.

I saw what she meant. Through the snow, I could see… shapes, unaffected by the storm. They were bright blue—ice, I realized—and looked like… the tops of towers, like on a castle. They went down into the mountain, and there wasn't much past them—I could see our reflections and that of the—towers, really?—in the force field, coming to a point in front of us.

At almost the corner, there was a very large, very thick tree. Unnaturally so.

"They're… towers," Evangaline also realized, out loud. "But… that means…"

"There's something underground," I said.

"But how do we… get there?" asked Jessalyn.

"Get there?" echoed Evangaline. "We want to get trapped under a mountain now?"

"It would be a great hiding spot, and shelter us from the storm," I said, trying to think rationally. "The only people who could come after us would be the Gamemakers, and I don't think they're trying to kill us. As long as we're entertaining… if we come above ground often enough…."

Evangaline muttered, "I guess."

"But how do we get down?" Jessalyn repeated.

I looked at the tree. Something wasn't right about it. I said so out loud, and then, "So what do you think we do about it?"

"I'll climb it and see if there's anything," offered Jessalyn.

"Be careful," I said warily.

Jessalyn nodded almost absently and started to climb the tree, with a fair amount of ease, thanks to her being from District Seven. She investigated, but shook her head, and climbed back down, safe at least. "Nothing," she said.

"We could try to open it up," said Evangaline.

"You mean chop it down?" Jessalyn asked.

"It might get us somewhere," she answered.

I tried to think of other answers, then said, "Sure. Why not?"

"I'll do it," Jessalyn said again, and started swinging at the tree with her tomahawk ax. After two swings, she said, "It's hollow."

"Open it the rest of the way," said Evangaline.

So Jessalyn moved her swings in a circle around the tree, until finally it fell, as we all took a step back. We looked at where there should've been a stump. Instead there was a hole, and…

"Stairs," Jessalyn gasped.

A spiral staircase leading down into darkness.

"Are we going down?" Evangaline asked.

"I guess so," said Jessalyn, looking at me.

"I'll go first," I said, and stepped onto the narrow staircase, and started walking down. It was a really weird experience—the ground disappearing above me. I kept my slingshot at the ready. I went down and down and down until I reached… a door. Hmm. I opened it, easily, and stepped out into a castle room made of more bright blue ice.

Jessalyn was behind me, then Evangaline. The wall around the stairs we'd come down, and the door, were also made of ice, along with the slippery floor.

"Whoa," said Jessalyn, and scurried around the huge, tall, blue room. "This is… so cool!" I thought that scary was probably the first word that came to her mind.

"Heads up," said Evangaline, and sent a knife flying through the air, and my eyes landed on her target—a white fox. It disintegrated when the knife hit it. Evangaline retrieved her weapon.

I looked around. "Are there more?"

"I can't see any," said Jessalyn.

"It wasn't even attacking," Evangaline said, with a strange look on her face. "Just roaming around."

"But there are bears above ground," Jessalyn pointed out.

"We should be safe for a while," I agreed, using the relative meaning of the word "safe" that was used in the Hunger Games.

"Guess we should explore," said Jessalyn.

So we set out around the castle. It was mostly empty, just more rooms like the one we started in—it would be easy to get lost, I noted—but then there were staircases leading up into the tops of the towers we'd seen from above ground.

The whole place was stunning, really, but I knew that in every arena, behind beauty lurked danger.

"Well," I said, when we were gathered in a well-secluded room, "let's make camp."

My allies agreed. We kept our weapons on us, but laid out our sleeping bags, and put down our backpacks. I realized that we were in danger from the cold, as we couldn't light a fire in here. But as long as we kept active, as long as we tried to ignore the constant dagger of freezing temperatures, as long as we had extra clothes and sleeping bags… we should've been okay.

We just had to wait and see.

"Do you really think we'll be safe here?" Evangaline asked.

Jessalyn shrugged.

I repeated, "For a while."

Evangaline accepted this for now. Temporary, partial safety before death. It was one of the only comforts we had left.

. . . . .

Cama Caline Ray, Age 18, District Three Female Tribute

The blizzard and the thunderstorm battled overhead in the cold for the whole afternoon while I gathered supplies in my area.

The arena was definitely very unnatural this year. Some of the changes—well, most, if I had to be honest—were bad for us tributes. But some were good, because the Gamemakers didn't want us to die. (Yet.)

So I found that even in what was supposed to be the dead of winter, the pine trees had open pinecones, as if they were set to a fall state. So I gathered them and scooped out the pine nuts, taking off their shells with my numb hands, and collecting the edible nuts in my first aid kit container.

I was hungry, but I was just gathering for now. I could eat later, although it was hard to hold off.

In the first aid kit, there were also scissors—so I tried to use them like a knife to carve out a section of the pine bark, then started peeling the inner bark off. I got small little bits at a time, but I collected them in the first aid kit, too. If I found a container I could cook in, I could boil them later.

I also gathered a lot of pine needles for pine needle tea/soup, but again I was going to need a container. And I had no water for actual drinking.

I sighed, though I wasn't much of a sigh-er. At this rate I could end up like the two tributes that had died this day.

As much as I really tried to not think like that.

As my distress set in, I heard a dinging from above. I looked up, and could hardly believe my eyes—a parachute was floating down towards me. And this early in the Games!

It was another miracle. My thinking turned around completely. I had to be the luckiest tribute in the whole arena.

I caught the package out of the air and opened it. Inside was a small, lightweight pot and lid, attached so that when I shook it around, the lid stayed on. There was also a note:

Boil water in here to remove all other particles. Love, Mom, Dad, and Everyone

I smiled so widely it brought tears to my eyes. Even here in the arena, my family was looking out for me. "Thank you," I said out loud, hoping they'd get to see me now, hoping they'd get to hear it. This pot could've saved my life. And it didn't even come from my mentor, or escort, or the Capitol, or strangers—it came straight from home.

I took a second to get myself back together, to try and suppress my mushy feelings, to get back into the arena mentally.

I headed back to my cave, restarted the fire, and scooped up a pot-ful of snow, then set the pot next to the fire and waited.

Meanwhile, I used the package from the parachute to store my gathered food instead of the first aid kit, transferring things, and I held on to the parachute itself too, just in case, putting it in my backpack along with the first aid kit. I kept the package out—I'd boil the tree bark and needles soon.

After the water boiled, I pulled the pot away from the fire and waited for it to cool. It was small enough to drink straight out of, so I did, and the water was fresh. No salt.

"Thank Panem!" I exclaimed, a little too loudly. I drank all of the water, then gathered more snow and boiled it, this time putting in the pine bark. I let it cool and pulled out the pine bark, letting it dry in the parachute package.

Finally I decided I should get something other than water in me, so I put some of the pine needles into a fresh batch of boiled water and waited. Then I slowly drank around them, drinking all of the tea/soup, with a slice from my loaf of bread, and then dumped out the pine needles and put the rest of the bread away.

I boiled one more batch of water, let it cool, and put the covered pot and everything into my backpack.

I felt so much better.

Still cold, still scared, but better.

And then I saw it.

The huge, lumbering mass of fur outside my cave. A bear.

I scrambled to get up, getting my backpack on my back. I was cornered, there was nowhere to hide, and I had no weapons, I couldn't fight—I had to run. But I'd have to get past it.

The bear started to come into the cave.

Thinking fast, I grabbed a branch from my woodpile and dipped the end in the fire. I waved it at the bear, my breathing coming in short, panicked bursts as I shuffled back. The bear walked past the fire. I worked up all of my bravery and hit it on its nose with the fire. It growled and stumbled back.

I took the chance. I ran past it, out of the cave, ran for dear life again. The bear followed me. The fire was creeping down towards my hand on the branch. I sucked in a breath, turned, and threw the branch at the bear. It scraped the bear's side, charring its fur, and it reared up, roaring.

It was distracted though.

I ran up the mountain in a zigzag path until I couldn't see the bear through the snow. I dared to stop, and looked back. No sign of the bear. I waited, practically holding my breath, but the bear didn't appear.

I slowly headed more uphill, trying to find another cave. I didn't think that the bear and the cave were connected; I'd spent the whole night there without incident. I just needed a different one, since I'd ran in this direction.

I went on through the storm, trying to find another place to make home.