Moves and Countermoves: Hannah
Chapter 12: Third Quarter Quell, Day Two
Monday 7th July
The Arena
The next time Hannah opened her eyes, it was a pair of worried blue eyes that hovered over her. Pig Boy's.
The next thing she realised was how much her right arm hurt, and then how much she needed water. "Water, I need water", she tried to speak, but Pig Boy had already left her.
Her neck was stiff but she inched it around to gauge her surroundings as she could now also hear lots of other voices around her.
She smelt fire.
Felt the warmth of it, so she couldn't be that far away from it.
It was quite cold, she realised with a shudder. Which is odd, because the arena had been so hot.
Pig Boy returned and pushed something to her lips.
It wasn't water. It was warm and tasted like soup, that was, what she managed to get in her mouth and didn't drip down her neck.
"You're wasting in Theodore, sit her up first".
Suddenly arms that weren't Pig Boy's helped her into a sitting position.
It was the District 3 Male tribute.
She realises now, it had been his eyes she had stared into earlier.
Had he saved her from the water?
Saved her a second time?
Why?
~xXx~
It's not until she's finished the soup that the District 3 Male tribute leaves her side. Forgetting about her injury, she puts her right arm down to support her weight first, before quickly changing it to the other arm. Pig Boy hasn't left her side, and she's already leaning towards him, so she rests her weight on him a bit. Happy that he is alive, happy that she is alive, that they are both still together.
They appear to be in some sort of camp, the small, hidden, enclosed shelter had been made out of large palm leaves woven together. As well as she, Pig Boy and the District 3 Male, there is the District 3 Female, both tributes from District 11, and the District 7 Male tribute.
A shudder goes through her. She's still cold.
"His name is Voltairion. He carried you on his back whilst we ran from the falling sky. There were more of us but", Pig Boy shifts uncomfortably, "they didn't make it", sounding sad.
Great, so she owed the boy her life, maybe thrice.
"Was he the one that pulled me out of the water?"
Pig Boy nodded. "I would have too ... if I could swim", embarrassed.
"You watched over me though didn't you? Made sure no one hurt me. I could feel you protecting me".
Pig Boy beams.
It was lie, she doesn't remember anything, but she knew the lie would make him feel better.
"The soup was good", looking longingly into the empty tin, to make sure there wasn't a sip left.
There wasn't.
"How did they make it?" She had smelt and then seen some sort of food wrapped in leaves being roasted on the fire, it smelt like fish.
"No one made it, it was a gift".
"A gift?"
Pig Boy nods.
"And this blanket", picking up the blanket around her feet, "some matches, medicine, and a ton of water!"
Hannah went to immediately wrap the blanket around her.
Pig Boy had continued talking but she only half listened, more concerned about getting warm.
So much had seemed to have happened without her.
How long had she been asleep?
It was only when she had wrapped the blanket tightly around her, did she register why she was so cold. She only had her swimming underwear on!
"What happened to my clothes?!" Searching frantically around her, she would certainly freeze by the morning with the temperature dropping at night.
She startles when a hand rests on her shoulder.
It was the District 3 Male again, he carefully took her injured arm, pulling it out of the blanket. Hannah allowed him to because he had looked after her so far, but then she suddenly pulls it back, her judgement getting the better of her.
"I'm just putting more medicine on your wound", he speaks softly, retrieving her arm again. Hannah focussed on the wound properly, it looked deep, but it also looked as though it was healing. "Your wet suit is drying out by the fire", his head indicates, "you had so many wounds, it was easier to just take it off you".
"There's not that much left!" Pig Boy. "Almost all of it had to be used on you earlier".
When the medicine tin is opened, she recognises the smell instantly, Euphemia Coin's magic cream.
"It works really well", the District 3 Male.
"I know", Hannah snaps, because there is so much she doesn't know at this moment. "... Why is it so cold?" Another shiver going through her. Her suit had to be dry by nightfall or she would freeze.
"Because of that", his eyes look up.
Hannah follows his gaze and shrinks at the sight of the silent chaos above them.
Although surrounded by thick jungle, what she can see of the destruction to the arena ceiling is ... breathtaking. The blue sky, contrasted with a large area of black night poking through the damage, huge pieces of metal poking out a different sides.
"It happened after the Cornucopia blew up. I watched you run from it, you were very lucky to have survived".
She had miscalculated the size of the blast, but she detects no blame in his voice, so doesn't admit to this. Maybe he doesn't know she was the one who set it off?
"How long have they been there?" Asking about the aircrafts that are silently hovering over the damage.
"More than a few hours", the District 3 Male.
More than a few hours! How long had she been asleep?!
"The power was out for a long time, but when the force fields turned back on, that's when we knew the Gamemasters were back in control. We had almost made it to the perimeter", disappointment clear in his voice.
"Why did you want to reach the perimeter?"
He throws her a funny look, "so we could escape and join the rebellion".
Hannah's eyes opened wide but she didn't say anything to it. "What time is it?" Not feeling her watch, she looks for Pig Boy's but he doesn't have his either. The District 3 Male doesn't have his either.
"It's night time, but they're keeping it light whilst they work. I'll see if your suit is dry", placing the medicine next to her.
A bow with no arrows, a knife, her Mockingjay pin, the wrapped note from Madam Coin and her mother's necklace are in the pile too; she fingers each item. But her smart watch isn't there.
She must have lost it in the water.
~xXx~
The girl from District 11 brought over her suit which was now dry. She took it quickly and dressed.
It wasn't until she put her injured arm through the sleeve did she realise she was no longer in pain. If anything she felt a bit cloudy and confused in the head, but her actual body felt fine ... normal. She put all her goods on - the night lock berries, surprisingly, had not burst - pinning Madam Coin's mockingjay pin on Pig Boy.
Pig Boy beams at her. He had been telling her about the District 11 girl, Bea, the one who had saved him by convincing him to jump off the podium, and then swam him to shore. On the one hand she wanted to thank her for saving Pig Boy's life, but on the other hand she hated that she had been the one to save him and not her.
"Do you know why they are helping us?" She suddenly thinks to ask, not knowing why she hadn't questioned them before. Well she knows why before, body in shock with pain, half naked, injured, desperately in need of food and water, she was in no position to question their kindness then. But now, now she was feeling like her old self.
"Because we refuse to fight", the District 3 boy speaks loudly behind her.
Hannah's shoulders hunch. He never seems to be that far away from her, always close enough to listen to her private conversations.
She turns around and throws him a glare.
"And you are not our enemy. You are our ally".
"You want me to join your rebellion?"
"It is a rebellion everyone from the Districts should be part of, and it started a long, long time before any of us were born", a voice to the left of her speaks.
She turns to face it.
The District 7 Male tribute. He's older and bigger than her, looks strong, but even in her weak state, she is sure she could still slit his throat.
"Are you not part of it already?" He indicates to her mockingjay pin.
She touches it.
'My little Mockingjay...'
'Be the Hannah you were before the Reaping...'
'You carry my heart with you, Hannah...'
'A Panem where everyone is free'.
"Or have you decided your Capitol now, like your Escort mother?" He says the word as if it makes him want to throw up. "Make your intentions known, so we know whether to rid of you or not".
Something cold goes through Hannah and she narrows her eyes on the boy.
Pig Boy steps in front of her, as if he thinks he would be any match against him.
Hannah steps in front of Pig Boy. "The mockingjay fights for a Panem where everyone is free". She wants to add that her mother is also not free, but doesn't because she can feel tears stinging in her eyes, and decides it's best not to try and say the words out loud.
"As do we all", the District 11 Female steps between them, glaring at the District 7 Male. "We shouldn't be talking like this is the open, you don't know who is listening", she turns to Hannah. "Now, let's eat. Forgive, Axel, it's been a very hard day and week for him, as it has been for everyone else. We are all pacifists here, we will not harm you".
Hannah looks over at the District 7 Male tribute, who's head is slightly hung. He raises his eyes to Hannah and nods.
Hannah nods back.
~xXx~
"Why did you let them take your glasses?" Hannah hisses as she sits next to Pig Boy. She had noticed before he didn't have them on, of course, but she assumed that he had lost them in the water, or when he was running from the explosion. But she's seen them, broken in half, the lenses very cleverly positioned to divert a force shield to create a perimeter around their camp.
"Because they asked for them".
"Were they broken already?"
He shakes his head, no.
"You shouldn't have given them your glasses, now you can't see", throwing covered glares at the other tributes in the camp. They are all bigger and older than them, Hannah would not be surprised if most of them were in their final Reaping years, perhaps they think they can order the two of them around because they are much smaller than them and younger.
"I can see! Just not as well", frowning at the cooked fish in his lap. "Besides, it's keeping us safe, and I'm happy I can do that".
Hannah sighs, there goes any idea she may of had of her and Pig Boy taking off alone if he can't see properly. She doesn't care if they say they are pacifists, she has seen many Games recaps to know, that people can change when it comes down to your survival verses someone else's survival. The most promising of alliances, severed.
"Where did you get all this fish from?" She asks loudly. They're all sat in a circle around the fire. "More gifts?" She doesn't recall Pig Boy mentioning it to her before.
"They were all dead floating on the water when a group of us returned to fish".
Hannah slows her chewing.
"Don't worry, they weren't poisoned, we checked and tasted them already -", the District 11 Male.
"- because heaven forbid we actually kill her", the District 7 Male.
Hannah doesn't know what the District 7 Male means by that, but the others around him seem to throw frowns at him.
"It was the explosion that killed them", the District 11 Male finishes.
"It was also where we found the first gifts. They were left right where I had dragged you out of the water".
"Hey - we should take her tomorrow, maybe they'll give us more when they see she's alive?" The District 7 Male.
"I don't think that's a good idea", the District 3 Female, "they will either kill her straight away, or they will save her and kill the rest of us".
"They wouldn't do that", the District 11 Male, "don't forget this is a TV show, and that wouldn't make very good TV. The Games over in two days, come on".
"Almost half of us must be dead already".
"Almost half are usually dead after the first day".
"I wish they would just hurry up and make it dark", the District 7 Male. "All this waiting around ..."
"Maybe that's why they are not making it dark? Because they don't know how many of us are dead", the District 11 Female says to the older tributes. "They can no longer track us, but maybe if we showed them we were still alive...".
The District 3 Male shakes her head, "I disagree, our anonymity is what will keep us alive longer".
"I agree", the District 3 Female says.
"Of course you agree, you are from the same district".
"We are all District here, but if they think that we are all dead, maybe then we can escape whilst they are disassembling the arena".
"That will never happen, they won't declare us dead until they see our bodies. How stupid do you really think the Capitol are? I mean there is a reason they have power over us".
"District 13-"
"- Our grandparents have grown old waiting for District 13 to save us, and in the mean time they have broken their backs living the lives of slaves. Perhaps that's not what it's like in District 3, where you don't gotta do manual work. But for the rest of us here ... that is, except Hannah".
"Hannah is half District", says Pig Boy next to her, "not that it matters".
"Says a Mayor's grandson", scoffs the District 7 Male.
"Enough", the District 3 Male. "Who their families are haven't prevented them from ending up in the arena, just like the rest if us. These divides and hierarchies the Capitol politicians have created between districts is precisely why 75 years later, our Districts are still not free. And it is all meaningless, because at the end of the day it is the District children they watch die for their entertainment, and it doesn't matter what anyone's grandparents did for as a living, because we are all just dogs in their eyes. Dirty district dogs".
Everyone goes quiet after that and concentrates on their food. Hannah leans towards Pig Boy, "what do they mean they can no longer track us?" She whispers.
"Because Voltarion threw our watches in the water and also removed all our trackers they put in our arms when we arrived here. It was very painful", he frowns at the memory, "but then we got the medicine", he smiles. "It means that the Gamemasters won't be able to locate us so easily, which Voltarion says is a good thing".
So that's why she didn't have her watch.
"What do you mean they removed the trackers from our arms?"
Pig Boy puts his food down and rolls up his sleeve to show the same scar wound that she has. "Don't you remember they put it in our arm when we first arrived in the Capitol?"
Hannah shakes her head, she didn't.
"Well you had one in your arm. Maybe you just forgot", he shrugs, picking up his food to continue eating.
"Maybe..."
So know one knew where she was. Which meant no one knew she was still alive.
~xXx~
Hannah was on watch while the others slept. The sun was still up but they were all exhausted, who knows how long it had been since the cannon rang to commence the start of the Games. Pig Boy slept near where she sat, one of his hands gripped around one of her ankles. She didn't mind, it was nice to know that he was near her too.
She had the blanket still wrapped around her and some on Pig Boy as the temperature was still cold. Nothing much could be heard because the force field around them heavily distorted the noise from outside. She had been watching the hybrid pack of monkeys that prowled up in the trees over the forcefields for a while now. She had never seen one in real life before and knew that they were not native to Panem, but it was a common mutt the Games used in the jungle arena.
It appeared as if they couldn't see their camp, they definitely couldn't reach them because of the forcefield, so she wasn't worried.
It interested her to know that the older tributes believed the same as her Sae, that other districts exist, and what's more, that District 13 wasn't dead and buried. - She felt it before she saw it. A strange tingling that she would often get whilst hunting in the woods in District 12. Something lurking to the left of her.
They had given her a knife for her watch, which was in fact a knife that she had taken from the Cornucopia. They said she wouldn't need it, but it was there just in case.
She turns and picks up her knife at the same time, ready for danger. But all she sees to the left of her is a very thick fog.
Thick fog can mean a multiple of things in the Hunger Games, it could just be fog, it could mean there is a very big fire burning in that dodecagon, or it could be a chemical smoke.
The good thing is that it doesn't appear to be reaching anywhere near their dodecagon due to the force field. Still, she moves to wake up the District 3 Male, just in case.
"What's happened?!" Pig Boy asks in a panicked whisper.
Hannah had forgotten about his wrist around her ankle.
"There's a thick fog in the section next to us", she explains, creeping carefully around the huddled bodies of the other tributes. She shakes the District 3 Male tribute awake.
"You know what that means?" Pig Boy.
"What?" Hannah turns to look at him.
"It's been a whole 24 hours since the Games started".
A whole 24 hours?!
They were in day two of the Hunger Games?
How is that possible?
Was she really that injured to have been passed out for that long?!
"How do you know?" Hannah asks, not so much skeptical but bewildered.
"What's wrong?" the District 3 Male tribute.
"The fogs back!" Pig Boy. "Which means-"
"- Which means it's been over a day since the Games started". Despite the dimness of the shelter, Hannah can still see his frown. "Chemical fog. We came across it earlier. It chased us back to the beach, we lost a few of us to it".
I thought suddenly came to Hannah. "You already know the arena's a clock?" She asks the two of them.
Pig Boy nods, "Haymitch told me".
"And my mentor told me".
"So what's going to happen next?" Because the dodecagon they were in was next.
"A big wave", the District 3 Male, "but don't worry, it goes around this forcefield. We're safe here".
So a whole day had passed.
A whole day since her parents had last seen her alive. Did they think she was dead?
Pig Boy and the District 3 Male tribute stayed up to do continue the rest of her watch with her, just in case.
The fog from the left dodecagon had shifted further towards the beach, and currently was empty of wildlife. They had been briefly entertained by the dodecagon to the right of them when a polar bear entered the dodecagon and had tried to capture the monkeys above him. It had also smelt them and their camp, but was quickly persuaded away by the electric shock it got from the forcefield.
'That means they must have an arctic arena set up somewhere here too!' Pig Boy had said in awe, and Hannah couldn't blame him, it was quite exciting to see one in real life one and so up close, even if it is only a mutt.
'It must have escaped when the force shields were down in the beginning. We were very lucky not to come across it earlier, weren't Theodore?' the District 3 Male almost laughed.
"Tell us what you know about District 13?" Hannah asks now, they were huddled sharing the blanket. "What did he mean when he said, 'our Grandparents have grown old waiting for District 13 to save us?'
"It's just a rumour really, it's not real", he begins.
Hannah frowns up at him, about to open her mouth, when she sees that the boy has his fingers to his lips, before he looks around.
Right, you don't know who's listening, even here ... especially here.
"That's what I thought. Everyone knows that District 13 is dead and buried".
~xXx~
Night fell suddenly and the District 3 Male got up to wake everyone up so they could see who had died. It was difficult for everyone to see in the small opening, and there was an argument between the older tributes just before the anthem played on who would be trusted to read out the information correctly. They settled on the District 11 Male.
Both the tributes from District 1 had died.
The female must have died in the blast in the Cornucopia as Hannah remembers seeing her there.
The male tribute from District 2 was still alive.
The male tribute from District 4 was still alive.
The female tribute had also been in the Cornucopia, so probably died in the blast.
The female tribute from District 5 was still alive.
The male tribute must have died in the Cornucopia explosion too.
Both the tributes from District 6 had died.
Hannah is pretty sure she spied them on the beach.
The female tribute from District 7 had died.
Hananh looked over to the male tribute, who had his head hung.
"She was with us, but she didn't make it out of the fog", Pig Boy whispers, "the tributes from District 9 died the same way".
The female tribute from District 8 was still alive.
Both the tributes from District 9 had died.
And 10.
Hannah wondered how many of them had died because of her explosion, directly or indirectly.
Then the anthem played again, and then there was silence, and then everything went inhumanely bright, and then everything went black again.
Until next update! :D