Chapter Seventeen – The Wave

The first thing Hamish experienced when he awoke was immense pain in the whole lower half of his body. At the same time, he became aware that he was sopping wet, and that rain was crashing down upon him.

He opened his eyes. It took a few moments to comprehend the situation he was in, and when he did, panic rose in his chest.

He was lying face up, with his waist and legs completely buried in heavy rubble. There were cuts all over his body, but the dried blood had since been washed away by the rain. Fortunately, his wand remained intact beneath his right sleeve.

With enormous effort, Hamish pushed himself into a sitting position, painfully aware of the sharp twinges in his back where he had lain awkwardly. The anonymous city street swam into view, and it was at that point he realised that, at some point in his state of drunkenness, he must have fallen victim to one of the collapsing skyscrapers.

Get a move on, he told himself. He was still in the middle of the Hunger Games, and right now he was in an incredibly vulnerable position. He began shifting some of the debris and broken slates in an attempt to free his legs. However, there were a couple of larger slates that were simply too heavy to move by hand.

With a furtive glance around to check there were no microphones or cameras in the immediate vicinity, to alert suspicion in the Gamemakers Room, Hamish aimed his right arm at the heavy slate and performed a swish-and-flicking movement.

'Wingardium Leviosa,' he breathed.

The rock lifted itself a fraction, just enough to allow Hamish to move his leg, and he experienced a wave of relief. It was then easier to shift the rest of the rubble. Eventually, he was able to climb cautiously to his feet and take a better look at his surroundings.

He had no idea how long he'd been unconscious, but the city was now more open than ever. There were now only two or three towers per street. Mounds of rubble lay either side of the roads, and the rain, which was unnaturally heavy and surely augmented by Gamemakers, was starting to turn the roads into canals.

Hamish was starving. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. His shoes slopping though the water, Hamish retrieved his backpack from the ground and ducked behind the pile of rubble that he'd just removed himself from. He made a noise of triumph: the chicken drumsticks were still there. He tore at both of them like an animal, and sucked as much flavour as he could from the bones.

He looked up at the gun-grey sky, and the rain plastered his hair to his face. There was no way of knowing if it was dusk or dawn. But even as he looked, the Panem anthem began to blare out, and the pictures of today's dead Tributes were emblazoned on the clouds.

Hamish felt his heart drop into his stomach like a stone. Ella's porcelain face was staring down from the heavens, with 'District 12' plastered across her chest.

Ella. Dead.

Hamish felt empty. In denial. It wasn't possible that Ella was dead.

A slow rushing noise swelled in the distance. Hamish tore his eyes from Ella's and looked behind him, towards the coastline across which he had stumbled before his blackout. What he saw now made him freeze in awe and sheer terror. It was enough to root him to the spot and enough, for now, to take his mind off Ella's death.

At least fifty feet high, looming towards the city in one monstrous motion, was the biggest wave Hamish had seen in his life. If he was in any doubt that the Gamemakers had started manipulating the climate, here was conclusive proof.

His senses returning, Hamish turned on his heel and bolted as fast as he could down the street. It wasn't easy. His legs were still numb from dormancy, and the backpack strap was cutting into a particularly nasty gash in his shoulder. He threw a glance back over his shoulder, only to see the wave ascending to even more impossible heights.

He kept sprinting in a straight line. At the next crossroads, he saw another tribute in the neighbouring street, who had also spotted the incoming tsunami and was imitating Hamish.

Then Hamish heard the inevitable thunderous crash as the wave finally collided with the bank of the city, and was quickly accompanied by the sound of more tumbling buildings. Hamish caught sight of his fellow tribute at the end of the next street, but saw that she was slower than he. She kept glancing back over her shoulder, and there was real panic in her expression. Hamish wasn't even sure she had seen him.

Hamish swore. Foamy water was rushing beneath his feet, his ankles, his shins. Alongside him, the girl lost her footing and fell. She desperately got to her feet again, but it was no use. The water was up to Hamish's thighs now, and he could not run. In desperation, he clung to the next skyscraper he passed, where the ground floor was half-submerged and laughed aloud in surprise. The gloves he was wearing, the silvery gloves he had taken near his podium at the start, were magnetic.

Hamish started climbing the outside of the glass skyscraper, his hands sticking to the glass, his feet finding window ledges to help him upwards. He was soon out of the water, which by now would have been head height, had he still been on the ground. Looking round, he saw the other girl face-down in the water, her arms and legs splayed. A cannon sounded.