This chapter is dedicated to 'Let The Foxx Fly', the creator of Lainey! Oh yeah, and when I say "Brin" I mean Twira, ok?
DAY SIX
Axel Leaf (D7)
I stare at sky slowly blackening sky. Why aren't the Gamemakers doing something, driving us together? I saw the blazes of a fire and there have been earthquakes but nothing has been targeted at us, the rival alliance. It makes me wonder if we're such a big a threat as we like to make out. Four tributes out of, well, how many is there of us?
"Hey Arc, how many tributes alive are there?" I ask but just as Arc is about to speak Fenora shoves him out of the way and answers herself.
"Five of the original six careers and there's six of us non careers left."
"No Fenora, I think there are seven of us left." Arc cuts in.
"No! Stop being stupid, it's six!" Snaps Fenora. I count in my head.
"I think Arc's right actually, there are seven." I interrupt.
"Arc's never right! Come on, let's count them then shall we?"
"Fine!" Snaps Arc, suddenly off the constant defensive and onto the offensive, "Lindsey, Axel, me, you, then both from eleven, I think they're called Nath and Thistle."
"There, that's six!" Boasts Fenora and I see Arc desperately thinking of the next one.
"Willow." A voice suddenly squeaks and I see Lindsey faintly sitting up, "The girl from ten. That makes seven."
Fenora glares at Arc, giving him a look which could kill a full sized horse and storms off into the woods surrounding, huffing and muttering about how we all have been teaming up against her. I guess she always has to be right. Arc rolls his eyes, taking over Fenora's trait and he bends down and starts whittling wood with the knife Fenora left behind. It's strange she usually takes a weapon with her, but evidently not this time. I rush over to Lindsey.
"Are you ok?" I ask her but she just chuckles slightly and grips her spear, then brings it up to the light.
"Just about as ok as I can be when I'm in an arena where everyone is out to kill each other, recovering from a near death experience. What about you, what do you care so much?"
"Oh, no reason." I say maybe a bit too hurriedly and leap to my feet, jumping away from Lindsey, "Well, I better go, places to see, tributes to kill."
Lindsey slowly props herself up and stretches her hand out so it is only just brushing my skin, "Take care." She whispers quietly and I nod and sneak forward towards the pile of supplies. I will take care, I will. I'll be fine, she'll be fine. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that I win, that I get the glory. But somehow I feel somewhat hollow as I bend down to sort out something to eat from our supplies of a handful of crackers and some roots and berries with a couple of fish, I feel empty as if there is more than survival in this game, but I just don't know what.
Lainey Rain (D4)
I look at Destiny, ok, it's more of a glare really. I mean, who does she think she is, bossing me around, pushing both me and Shale around like we're puppets. We're not puppets. We're human beings, but I guess that's the price for volunteering in the hunger games, ah well, you never know, my best friend, Tasha Storm, wouldn't even have lived up to here. And I really didn't want her to steal all the glory, if she won and I volunteered next year she would accuse me of copying her and I do not copy. I set the trends, well with her anyway.
Not my parents, my parents just don't seem to understand. They don't understand me, they just don't. They think I can be pushed around, everyone thinks I can just be pushed around. I grimace. If Destiny takes just one step my way I will stick her with my knife I have gripped in my hand, and if she says just one thing-
"Lainey, stop glowering at me, it's putting me off."
Right. That's it. I can't put up with her for a moment longer. She is going to die before darkness finishes falling. I look to the sky, sunset. Damn. Maybe I shouldn't kill her, I mean, she might be useful. Maybe I could just-
"I said stop glowering Lainey, you're putting me off."
"My face is putting you off?" I snap angrily and Destiny looks up at me from the shelter that both she and Shale are building while I keep watch for any other tributes that may be lurking around the desert at this time of night such as Rod or "Brin" who might be around.
"Yeah, I suppose that's one way of putting it." Destiny says maliciously and bends back down. How dare she say that to me, just how dare she? I give up all means of diplomacy, if I ever applied them, and dive at Destiny. I can barely blink before we both have a knife flicked up high in the air and are facing each other with bitter determination. Shale doesn't even seem to have realized (with a z) what is going on.
Destiny lunges at me but I contort my body into a twist and spin out of the way so she dives to the sand ridden ground. She grimaces and then pauses.
"No knives, let's make this personal." She says and she flings her knife to the floor. I pause, this is the hunger games, you are allowed to cheat and lie. But I don't think it's fair, even if the hunger games has nothing to do with fairness and I fling my knife to the ground too.
"Shale, pick them up!" Destiny snaps and Shale hurriedly scampers to bth of our feet and tucks the knives into his belt. He looks between us hurriedly.
"This isn't a good idea..." He stammers but already I am charging at Destiny. I shove her backwards with all my might but as soon as she hits the ground she springs back up again and head butts me in the face, sending me reeling. She closes her eyes menacingly and grips hold of the closest neck that she can find and throttles until it goes limp and the cannon fire sounds.
Thistle Clay (D11)
I wake up, my head spinning and glance around the camp. Nath's not here, where is he? Then it all comes flooding back to me, Nath suddenly hitting me over the head with the hilt of his knife, reeling into unconsciousness. I hurriedly glance around the camp. Gone, the supplies are all gone! I curse under my breath. How could I have been so stupid, took Nath in because he was my district partner just for him to double cross me and knock me out. I scowl a menacing, hating scowl. He will pay for what he has done. My hand dashes to my side for my bow, it's here. At least he left me a small shred of dignity, a tiny sliver of hope and survival. I reach out to my container for my arrows to get some to hunt my prey but as I fish around in it I find nothing inside. Nothing!
I almost scream as I hoist it off my back and find it empty. I doubt he took them with him; he just probably snapped them into tiny shards and buried them. Without arrows my bow is useless, without arrows I am useless too. I might as well snap the stupid thing. I curse. I can recover from the lack of an ally and Nath's betrayal and even having no food, I can gather more even if the few slices of bread I had left won't be here, but I can't recover from a lack of a weapon. I am pretty much stuffed.
I am just about to snap the bow down for firewood when suddenly something flutters into my arms. I bat it away but it just sinks to the ground and I look at it. A parachute! Maybe someone listened to my mental pleas for help after all. I might have arrows! I shove my hand in and tug out what's inside. But instead I find a hammer and a knife. I grimace. Don't my escorts know that I can only use a bow and arrow? Don't they know that I can't fight with these, I'll be useless? What do they want me to do, learn how to use them? I let them drop to the floor but out of the parachute drops a final thing. I hold it up and examine it in the silver glisten of the moon's light. A chisel. Then the gift hits me and I grip the rock by me, flint. They want me to make my own arrows! I smile, I can have as many as I can make, it might gain me sponsors when they see what I can do and also it means that I get the knife, hammer and chisel also as a weapon to protect myself in one on one combat if the time ever comes.
I grimace slightly at the thought and then handle them, I'll start tomorrow. Then suddenly I see the hunger game's logo projected in the sky and leap to my feet. I haven't heard a cannon. Has anyone died? Is Nath dead? Then a face stares up from the sky, a face I never thought I would see. A career. A career died, so the careers have either split from the cornucopia site early or someone got a hack at them. Either way it's a lot easier for me. I smile as I look at the face that has just disappeared from the sky, I smile as I look at the face of Shale Overheart.
Yeah, Destiny thought she was killing Lainey when she killed Shale and Lainey ran away! I'm sorry creator of Shale but I needed death to keep the story rolling! I have finished Gnawing Hunger but that doesn't mean I have finished. You see, I am doing a sequel to it. But that won't start for a week or so, so you're safe! I really should be revising because I have important exams coming up so you may not get another one of these for a few weeks. Sorry again to the creator of Shale! Oh, and Pokela, I'm not mad at you about Twira. I'm fine with it; I said I accepted tributes that had been in other SYOTs at the beginning so it's fine. Just make sure you don't do that to someone who says they want original tributes or yours could end up dead in the bloodbath! Oh yes, and if you're wondering why everyone keeps on mistaking Nate for Nath it's a personal joke between myself and myself because I used to accidently call Nate Nath and now it has stuck, so Caesar and a few tributes have called him Nath so far and I might jack it up so everyone just calls him Nath just to keep myself happy in an odd way! Oh yes, I have ANOTHER poll up so go and check it out!
