Thirty-one – The Muttations
The Coalition – Division One (11.1)
The hang-a-tribute-by-their-leg snare trap. I remember practising to make it back at training, and it is a difficult knot. I may remember a lot, but after seven days of not consolidating on it, I cannot get it to a level like this. Whoever made it should be proud that their contraption worked successfully. Unfortunately, it's Ryno who is testing its effectiveness.
"Ryno!" I yell, but instantly covered my mouth. For once, I'm lucky my voice isn't loud for anybody to be summoned. But Ryno's is.
"Aah! Help!" He flails with his leg attached to a string secured to the branch of a tree up high. "Cut me down! Cut me down!"
I try to shush him and calm him down. He tries to pull himself up to reach his legs, but his muscles relax after failing.
The rope at his ankle is too high for me to reach and sever, even with Ryno's sickle. I would either have to climb the tree, or climb his body.
"No, don't cut me down!" pants Ryno. "Kill whoever is coming, please! Just kill them!"
Of course! Somebody will be checking the commotion at the site of the trap soon to finish off whoever is caught. I need to look around and stop them from killing Ryno.
But with Ryno up there, unable to move, he can easily be killed with a well-aimed arrow, knife, spear, or even a rock. No, am I about to lose yet again another ally? No, I can't. I have formed too much of a relationship with him. He cannot go this soon.
I drop my packs, pick up the sickle Ryno dropped on the ground, and walk a distance from the tree he hangs from.
"What are you doing?" he yells.
"Prepare to land with your arms!" I answer.
"Oh, no. Don't cut off my leg!" he panics. "Don't miss my leg! I mean, please miss my leg! I can't think!"
I sprint towards the tree and I place my feet on its trunk as if to run up the tree. The height I gain is what I use to swing and let go of the sickle up high. It only just clears his foot and severs the rope above it.
He falls hard on the ground with a thud. I did not prepare for my landing as I kicked too hard off the tree, and so I fall hard as well.
Ryno recovers first and frantically helps me up off the ground up, but the sudden rush of blood from being upside down causes him to lose balance and fall once again. It's my turn to help him up. I hug him, glad that he's okay, but he is too focused on the traps builder.
"Who did that?" he shouts. "Where's my sickle? I'm going to kill them."
He storms off to grab the sickle off the ground and returns to find me looking at a girl approaching me with a tree branch, with a lethal sharpened tip, pointed straight at me.
The girl, I can't recognise her from that far...
"There she is!" yells Ryno. "You're going to pay! You-"
"Ryno, no!" I chase after him. I suddenly remember who the girl is.
Ryno swipes the branch out of the girl's hands with the sickle, but there wasn't a lot of resistance to keep it with her, as if she just dropped it. Even Ryno stops.
"Ryno, don't kill her!" I arrive.
"I'm not." he replies calmly.
The girl is crying, slouched over, and has her hands all over her face. She looks absolutely emaciated. Her bones are prominent. Her face has sunken in. Her arms are almost as thin as the tree branch she held herself.
"Hey!" I try to grab her attention, but it takes a couple attempts for her to stop wailing and spinning. "You're the girl from District 8, right? Greig's partner."
She mumbles a little, "Greig."
"Henry, she's insane." says Ryno, but I continue addressing her.
"Are you hungry?" I ask. "We got some with us. We got food, don't worry."
Her eyes seem to light up at first, but her arms and head falls down after a while.
"Hen, she's skin and bone." says Ryno. "Look at her. She's practically dead. We can't bring her back."
I realise he's right. She's starved and probably too dehydrated. The insanity she shows is a result of this. I remember her leaving the cornucopia at the bloodbath immediately, and so she was unable to find anything to feed herself. I can't believe she lasted seven days in the heat with little to no sustenance. Now, she is at the point of no return. I hate to say this about a person, but she looks terrible. Undernourished. If we didn't find her, she would have died in a few days.
Ryno and I look at each other. I know what he is thinking by his facial expression. We have to kill her. But I don't want the girl to die undignified or alone, like she has been for the whole Games.
She clutches her stomach, like she has an infection, probably from the lack of food. So I stay a distance, talking to her.
"I knew Greig." I tell her. "We we're going to be together in the Games, but..."
I don't even know if she has the mental capacity to understand everything I'm saying because of the hunger.
"Well, I wish I got to know you, too. You were so quiet." I say. "What's your name?"
"R- Resa." she stutters. "You... knew Greig?"
I nod slowly.
"Hen." whispers Ryno. "I feel too sorry for her."
"Give me a bit more time." I reply, and I turn back to Resa. "That was a really good trap you made there. You got my friend good."
I remember the girl back at training, tall and slender but not starved. Always at the knot-tying station. Traps probably are her strength. If this were any other arena, she probably would have caught a lot more food with all her other snares she most likely has set up.
"Must be all the weaving you do, right?"
Resa gives a weak smile, then she falls to her knees. I lunge forward to stop her, but I stop short.
"Dying." she says, and she stares at the blade in Ryno's hands.
"I don't know how to say this right." I say. "But we're going to kill you, so you don't have to be in pain anymore."
Resa gives a slow nod and smiles. "Do."
I look at Ryno, who approaches with the sickle.
"I'm so sorry, Resa." I tell her, as she lies herself down on the ground.
"Shelter." she points to the direction of the structure Ryno spotted before.
"You want us to take your shelter?" I ask.
She confirms this with a slow nod.
I bend down to brush her thin, dark hair back, and I give her a soft kiss on her forehead.
"Goodbye, Resa." I tell her, before standing up and turning away for Ryno to do his work.
I hear her last word. "Win."
Then I hear Ryno plunge the sickle into her body. Her soft gasp. Silence. Ryno's footsteps.
I turn back. Resa lays lifeless, blood gushing from her chest, and Ryno has walked away, back faced to me and her body, his hands on his hips, his head down. I know he hated having to do that.
We couldn't save her, and I hate that I couldn't. I don't even know why I should. I just did not want anybody to die like this. It just looked too painful.
The boom of her cannon sounds around the arena. It is an all too familiar sound.
I didn't even know her well and tears well in my eyes. Ryno walks back to me, the end of his sickle coated in blood, and his eyes coated with tears. He senses my pain, and embraces me tightly without saying a word.
After about twenty seconds, he lets go.
"Let's let her be picked up." he says, and we pick up our packs and walk away from her body.
With Resa's death, it dawns on me that we are in the final nine. We have hit single digits. Fifteen out of twenty-four children have already died. It is now more competitive than ever.
We arrive at Resa's shelter. It is obviously too small for both of us and our packs since it was only made for one person, but we both could fit without a lot of wiggle room, like enough room for both of us in the sleeping bag. I silently thank Resa for the provision of the shelter. How many times do I have to be helped by another person here but they die and I do not? Radia, Virgil, Magnus, and now Resa.
Ryno is uncharacteristically silent as we settle in close, watching the ground absorb the light and heat of the sun.
"Dough." he finally says.
"What?"
"I'm sorry. I try to make jokes to distract myself sometimes but I can't find one now." he admits. "You know it was an act of mercy."
"I know." I reply. "You did the right thing."
"But it still felt like shit." he says.
"Everything feels like shit." I tell him. "But thank you for doing that. Being the one to put her to sleep."
"I don't know why I felt different about killing her, seeing her so starved like that." he says. "Why is it any different if she was healthy and well? I would have been ready to kill her then."
"Well, she did get you into a trap." I say.
"I know that, but she was always on our side." he says. "I wanted to kill her because I fell into her trap, when I should have only killed her if she was a Career, because they deserve death more than the kids like her. I really need to work on my temper."
Resa is just another innocent life lost. Another victim of these Games. Being in the Games itself, I feel as powerless as ever, and the Capitol appear to be unstoppable in their pursuit of control. I think Ryno feels guilty that he would have intended to kill Resa and participate in the division of the districts, if only she wasn't dying of starvation.
"I feel better that she was dying, but I hate it at the same time. Nobody should have to be at that stage." he says. We stare at our packs and they are looking the most vital they have ever been. "But what you did. You made her feel better. You did what no other tribute ever really thinks of doing. I would have just killed her, but you talked to her. That's why I admire you so much. That's the Henry I've always liked. So caring. I'm surprised you still can, in a situation like this."
I'm surprised, too, but I'm not surprised that my feelings to care for these other tributes are fading. I'm becoming somebody with a selfish mentality. I don't think I can keep it up by the end of the Games. I don't think I will have the heart to say goodbye to a tribute I have only met at their end, like Resa.
"They're people." I tell Ryno. "I just try my best to get what they deserve. A proper goodbye. A genuine conversation. But sometimes it's a bit too much. It could get us killed if we don't care about ourselves."
"At least I'll die thinking I did some good." says Ryno. "I want to be like you."
I scoff. "I want to be like you." I say. "Confident. Funny."
Ryno pulls me in and ruffles my hair. "You're like the male version of my little sister."
"Did you get hurt from the trap?" I ask.
"Physically, no." he says. "I'm fine. Just a scratch."
We never declare it, but we spend the afternoon just sitting, waiting the time to go by. I lean on Ryno as we watch the only trees in our view sway in the slight warm breeze.
Ryno speaks what is on his mind. "Do you think there are other nations? Other than Panem."
I have thought about this. School tells us we are the only nation in the world, but the planet is so big, there has to be other land masses somewhere with some people who survived the event like we did. But nobody other than the Capitol has the technology to confirm that. And I don't think they want us to know whether there are others, and whether there are trade or treaties going on. So this isn't really the topic to talk about when the Capitol is watching.
"Yes." I lower my voice into a whisper. "I like to think so."
"Do you think they're doing better or worse than us?"
The more I think about it, the more it feels like a fantasy. The idea that there are other people that live better, non-oppressive lives like us is ironically just as absurd as those people having to live in abject poverty because they have leaders that are also selfish.
"Better, hopefully." I say. "Hope nobody else has to be treated this bad."
Ryno smiles. "I think they're doing worse."
"How?"
"Think about it." He whispers. "If there were people that are doing better, they'd come to help us or something. Or they think we're a lost cause. Or they shoot anything that's not the Capitol out of the sky. Or they could just be dead because the radiation is worse where they are."
"Could be any of that." I agree.
We continue to sit when I see a bird fluttering on the branches of a tree in the distance. It doesn't look like the other birds I've seen in the gardens. It's smaller than most, and most resembles a mockingbird, only much darker.
"That bird looks different." I point out. "And cute."
Ryno squints to find the bird settled on a branch. "That looks like a mockingjay." he says. "Let's go check it out."
Ryno leaves before I could object, like he is raring to see it up close.
"There's a lot of these that fly over the fields in my district." says Ryno. I think I've seen only one before, actually, around the Revolt. Must not be common around District 3. "Apparently, they can mimic human songs."
"Really?" I ask. "That's amazing. Don't see a lot of them. They probably hate the factories and the fact that there's no trees."
"They copy only if the singer has a good voice." says Ryno, and then he gives a shrill scream that I am sure the whole Garden heard.
The bird stays silent.
"See? It hates me."
"You didn't even try to sing!" I whisper. "You tried to get people to find us!"
"Now you try." says Ryno, ignoring my alarm. "Sing the Wheat Song."
I look the bird, peacefully nestled on the branch. It sings a beautiful bird song right as I inhale.
"I didn't even say anything." I tell Ryno.
"It does that." he claims. "It will hear you over itself."
I sing the words, "It all begins with fertile soil..." and the bird stops its song as if to listen. Then it reproduces the same soulful tune, in a voice almost like mine but louder.
I look at it in awe. "That's beautiful." I say. "And creepy."
I turn to Ryno who is looking at the bird, and then to me. He grins. Then we hear a couple of other birds sing the same song in the distance. More mockingjays.
"Oh, that is really beautiful." says Ryno.
"Does it copy anything with a good voice?" I wonder.
"I don't know." shrugs Ryno. "My pitch and projection is non-existent."
I clear my throat and sing a slow, "Ryno smells!"
"Hey!"
The birds pick it up in a distorted but still understandable warble. I snicker.
"Shut up." Ryno points to the oblivious mockingjay. "Let's go back, I don't trust you with them anymore."
He walks to the shelter first and I hear him mutter, "But crap, his voice is amazing."
"I need to tell you quietly how these birds came to be, according to my mom." Ryno tells me as we squeeze back into the shelter. He whispers close to my face. "I love them because they're basically a fuck you to the Capitol."
I blow him away. "Brush your teeth."
"Hey, easy for you to say!" he says. "Your last name is literally the stuff under the hard bit of the teeth."
"And how did you know that?" I probe.
"Anyway," continues Ryno. "My mother said her mother told her about the jabberjays, which were boy birds that were created as muttations by the Capitol to spy on the rebels like sound recorders during the Dark Days. Then the Capitol threw them out into the wild when they realised the rebels were just feeding them false information."
"Smart." I say.
"But what the Capitol didn't know was that they were able to mate with mockingbirds and other birds, and that's how the mockingjays were born."
"So they were essentially created by accident?" I ask.
Ryno nods. "Like me."
My head spins to him in horror.
"Ha! Your face!" he laughs. "I'm joking. I wasn't conceived by accident. My other brother was."
"Ouch." I say. That was interesting to find out. The Capitol basically failed with the jabberjays, and so the mockingjays that were created out of their control are the remains of that failure. The mockingjay must be popular with other districts where it might be viewed as a symbol of hope that Capitol might fail in the control over them. Unfortunately, we haven't heard about them much District 3, because of all the factories that all birds seem to hate being around.
"Anyway, that's why I love these birds." whispers Ryno. "They show that the Capitol is imperfect. And they bred a lot. The Capitol can't get rid of them."
I get a bit of schadenfreude knowing the Capitol essentially lost to a bunch of birds. Hopefully we can become those mockingjays who can escape the Capitol's grasp.
"I love them too." I declare. The mockingjay takes flight ethereally.
Around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, Ryno and I decide to share the apple in my pack to finish it once and for all.
"The laxative actually did make me feel better." says Ryno. "Now, eating feels better. I feel emptier. No pain. Nothing blocked."
"That's good." I say. "Do you have some left?"
"No. Do you think we could have used it to poison the other tributes?" He suggests. "Death by the shits?"
"Probably." I say. "But let's not talk about that while we're eating."
"Right."
But we are also aware that the only food we have left is so minimal, lasting us another two days if we don't lower the rate of our consumption from now.
"Do you know how to make snare traps?" I ask Ryno.
"No." he says. "Just the one to catch a rabbit. I'm scared of snares now."
"Can you hunt at least?"
Ryno looks at his sickle. "Unless the animals want to go two metres near me, then no."
I am suddenly feeling like needing Radia and her slingshot skills. It saddens me to think about her again. But nothing can be done. Just traps for now.
Before nightfall, we both walk a distance from our shelter to set up our traps. We discover that Resa has made a few more traps for the smaller animals that are still active. They may not have worked because she had no bait to work with. We add some of the scraps from our apple, the uneaten flesh near the core, around the snares. I notice Ryno is walking extra weirdly around the Garden now, as if he is careful of wherever he steps.
Even though we're able to head into nightfall because of our night-vision glasses, Ryno and I only set up around three extra snares because Ryno keeps making mistakes with the knots, tying them like he does with sheaves of wheat. But it's more than enough. We sacrifice a cracker around each of them hoping the traps will yield us something of greater value.
When we return to our shelter, we only wait a short while before the anthem plays and the Capitol seal appears in the sky. It precedes Resa, the only face in the sky tonight. There will still be eight more to join her.
"Who's left?" Ryno asks. "Nine left for District 9."
"So there's the three Careers." I list with my fingers. "Jade, Mariana, Quentin."
"Stuff them." comments Ryno. "Who else?"
"The girl from District 6." I say. "Ringo..."
"Who's that?"
"Uh, the boy from 7." I answer.
"Oh." says Ryno. "Him. I don't trust him for some reason."
"He is a little quiet." I admit. "But his district partner told me he was with us for the fight against the Careers."
"I know that." says Ryno. "And I trusted his partner, but just not him for some reason. Anyway, who else?"
"There's District 10." I say. "Are you close with them?"
Ryno chuckles. "I was, but I haven't seen them at all. I thought they were the best bet to bring me to the end, but they're more of a threat now. And I feel like a third hay bale with them. You're a better ally."
So all those moments where Ryno hung out with the tributes from District 10 were attempts to bring him closer to winning, but now he doesn't want them winning. I hope he doesn't feel that with me.
"Was it them who came up with the idea for the alliance?" I ask.
"No." replies Ryno. "We just became messengers and went along with it."
"Okay, so that's seven." I say, but I am completely stumped on the remaining tributes I haven't yet counted for some reason. "Who are the other two?"
Ryno thinks hard to figure it out. I run through the districts in my head. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...
"Umm, Henry and Ryno?" says Ryno. "You know, the nobodies?"
I slap my palm to my head. I forgot to count ourselves, and I even skipped myself on the double-check. I have never felt so stupid.
"And I thought I was the dumb one." laughs Ryno.
"Hey, you took long to figure it out as well!" I counter. "It's the arena. It's making me lose brain cells."
"Looks like you're getting your wish of becoming like me." smiles Ryno.
We set up our sleeping bag which becomes a bit of a struggle to slide into because of the cramped size of the shelter. The bigger challenge is the cold, which is a lot more extreme now that we're staying outside. We huddle each other for warmth. With Ryno's relaxing contact and the relative softness on the ground, I sleep a lot sooner.
But right as I'm about to drift off into sleep, Ryno makes a loud gasp.
"What? What?" I whisper. "Bad dream? What happened?"
"Oh, nothing." he says, and goes to snoring. I also fall asleep.
I awaken to just me alone in the sleeping bag. Ryno? Wait, why would he leave? This can't be real. I try to put myself into reality. I'm in the Hunger Games, at the South Garden. It's day eight and-
Wait, there's some notable about day eight, like I made a mental note that it was special, but I forgot why. Oh, it's the 17th of July.
"Happy birthday." says Ryno, kneeling in front of my face, holding out some sort of a gift.
"Huh?" I say, still groggy. "Oh, thank you! What's this?"
My eyes adjust from the blur and in his hands is a small stack of four crackers, wrapped in a bow decoration using some of the remaining string from my bag.
"It's the best I could come up with at such quick notice." says Ryno. "And with such little stuff."
"Ryno, thank you." I say. "Just you remembering is enough."
"I was going to put sixteen because of your age but that's too much for you to eat and we'll starve." he says. "I hope you have a cracking day today!"
I have made it to day eight in the Games. I've made it to my birthday. I have lived long enough to be sixteen years old. Today might also be the last day I will live, but my mood is too high to worry about that. I have made it to an important point in my life despite the odds of me making it were low.
Then I remember my family. We would be celebrating my birthday right now with a special purchase of food that would be cooked to deliciousness. The feast would leave leftovers that will last for three days. Unfortunately, that is not happening this year. I am not with them, and they are not with me. My mother would be crying seeing her son on the screen, now one year older.
"What's wrong?" Ryno catches my face.
"Just my family." I say. "I miss them so much."
Ryno sets the crackers aside and holds my hand in both of his.
"I understand." says Ryno. "I miss mine, too, but mine would be real happy to have one of their children reach another age, no matter where they are."
"I guess they are."
"And at least you're not celebrating it alone!" he says. "I'm here."
I smile at him. "Since when did you become me?"
"I tapped into your mind." Ryno jokes. He gets the crackers and holds them in front of my face. "Eat a cracker."
I unwrap the bow with my teeth and grab the top cracker with my mouth alone, not stopping my smile. I am glad Ryno is here, and is actively excited for me. His energy is infectious rather than off-putting to me now. I feel a lot better.
"You need a way better gift than this." he says, then he crawls out of the shelter and stands.
"Hey! Sponsors!" he yells. "Guess what? It's Henry's birthday! He's turned sixteen. So what does he deserve? Presents! Send him your gifts of food and water. Medicine works. Give me bread. I mean, give him some bread!"
Okay, he's being silly. But I'm not going to stop him. The audience might think this is normal, and if it is, Ryno is doing a very good job. If there was an entertainment industry, he would be there.
Ryno turns to me quickly. "If Steffi was here, she would be performing some acrobatic tricks and handsprings or something. I would do it, but I'm not flexible enough."
"She never told me anything about that." I say. Then I'm reminded of Radia who is also amazing in front of the cameras. "Radia would have waved to every single camera she could find."
"That I can do." says Ryno, and he flails his arms in the air. "It doesn't have to be food if it's too expensive! Maybe like some healing cream. Not even, give him some makeup, a personalised towel, some toilet paper..."
I don't want to receive a sponsor gift when I haven't earned it, and I don't want the people to think I don't deserve because I haven't worked for it.
"He's worked so hard." announces Ryno. "He's made it far, survived so many perils and attacks, including a gas attack, sorry, to survive until his sixteenth birthday. And most of all, he said it himself, he loves you!"
"They are not going to give a thing to me." I tell him.
"Yes they will." he whispers back, then goes back to shouting and singing. "Presents for Henry! Happy birthday to Henry-"
I notice a mockingjay fly away.
"If not me, give some to Ryno! I mean, how entertaining is he?" I join in. "He's funny. He's survived a trap. And he's killed-" I falter. "He gave thanks for the medicine that made food go out. Now he needs bread that goes in!"
"He's right!" smirks Ryno. "But what's a birthday without presents?"
I calm down. "We should go check our snares." I tell Ryno.
"Speaking of presents." Ryno announces. "Let's see what presents our traps we set up last night left us?"
"Okay, you can stop talking to the cameras now." I say.
So it appears our traps have not left us anything. They remain untouched, as with the bait. I'm disappointed, but I shouldn't be surprised from this arena.
"That's alright. It's been just one night." Ryno says positively. "The animals are probably diurnal."
We walk back to our shelter where we seek relief from the increasingly hot sun.
"You know, I had an idea." proposes Ryno. "We could get some food, poison them, and pack them inside the parachute that we got back in the building, and send them out to another tribute to think it's a gift from a sponsor. But I realised that's going to be hard to do."
"Oh, that would be dastardly." I say. "But yeah, I don't want to go back for the parachute if we do that."
"We can just wait for another to come down with your present." says Ryno. "I remember one of the best birthday presents my sister ever got, when she was like nine, was a dog."
I jump. "You're able to get a dog?" I ask. "I always wanted a dog. They're so cute and just seem therapeutic."
"Loaf was both of those." recounts Ryno.
"Loaf?"
"She looked like one." says Ryno. "She was a stray and my oldest brother just brought her in for no reason whatsoever and she ended up being the family dog. Well, she hated my dad and my other brother who didn't bring her in, but she loved the rest of us. She was just a source of joy. Happy and oblivious to the ugly world."
"That's so cute." I comment. "I want to cuddle Loaf. But you're talking about her like it's in past tense."
"She died shortly after my mom did." says Ryno. "That year was so tough on all of us, but both my mother and Loaf brought me a lot of good memories."
"That's the good thing." I comfort Ryno. "Give me an example."
"Loaf would follow me every time-"
"That's adorable."
"Into the bathroom and just lies down in my pants." finishes Ryno. "So fucking cute."
I scrunch my face. "I was not expecting that." I say.
"So why don't you have a dog?" probes Ryno.
"Our house is too small for a dog, and we have no yard." I explain. "Our family likes them, but most of our district think they harbour diseases and pests, especially the strays. And one more mouth to feed is a little hard."
Ryno nods. "Makes a lot of sense." he says. "My mother told me a lot of the dogs died off due to rabies during the Dark Days. I'm glad they've repopulated. Anyway, if you win, you'll end up having enough room for one!"
"Yeah, hopefully." I say, but it's all bittersweet. I will have a dog, but I will leave my home, and Ryno would be dead.
"If I was an animal." says Ryno. "What would I be?"
"Well, a few days ago, you'd be a skunk." I say.
"I can't argue with that."
"But now, I really think you'd be a dog." I say. "Those ones that can perform tricks, but still really loyal."
"Aw, really?" he asks. "Thank you. It would be great to be one. And you, what you be?"
He stares at me. "A mockingjay."
"Woah, no way." I deny. "How? Are you saying I'm made by mistake?"
"You can be one!" he says. "Think about it. You sing so beautifully."
"But I don't copy!"
"But they do nothing but sing beautifully. And also..." he whispers in my ear. "They're quietly against the Capitol."
"That applies to a lot of us." I counter. I think the mockingjay has a lot more worth as a symbol against the Capitol than I will ever be.
"We'll see." says Ryno, and continue sitting in silence, only broken by a few of Ryno's spontaneous "Happy birthday!"
Hours go by, and there's no gift. I don't know if it is taking a while to go through, or if nobody actually gave us a gift. It would be super embarrassing if the audience just hated or cringed at our charade for some presents.
"Where's the charity?" wonders Ryno.
"I'd rather nothing happen than something bad happen on my birthday." I tell Ryno. "It's fine, really."
"Reverse psychology!" Ryno lights up. "That genius."
"No-"
"Hey, audience." he says. "You know, you don't have to give the birthday boy a present. He'll be fine. He'll just feel a little sad that there's no way for him to know that anybody is acknowledging such a special day in his life."
I let him keep talking while I reminisce about the happy times with my family, during my birthdays. I miss them too much. I'm upset that they're not as happy as they are this year, but I hope I can make it up to them when I win.
Suddenly, I feel a small chill. There's something off. The sun is still hot. The trees are still waving to the slight breeze. But there is something missing with the usual conditions. It's a little quieter.
"Do you notice that?" I ask Ryno, still as to not distort my senses.
"The birds have stopped." he says. He's right. That's what is off. And that is not a good sign. Is there another tribute around who's disturbed them?
Ryno brandishes his sickle in defence of whatever is coming. I slowly take out a knife. We stay as quiet as we can to hear out any sounds. Tributes. Predators. Hazards.
"It's probably nothing." he whispers, but he stays on guard. Hopefully whatever this is is just a threatening parachute for us.
Then I hear a faint snapping noise. It could have been a breaking tree, but it did not sound too close to it.
"What was that?" Both Ryno and I whisper to each other, to which we have no answer for.
"I'm going to check." says Ryno, and he slowly leans forward to peek out of the shelter. He looks left and then right.
"What?" he squints. "Oh fuck, it's moving."
"What's moving?" I ask, panicked. "Don't joke again."
Ryno just turns to look at me with a worried expression, shaking his head. He is not joking.
"It's coming closer." he says. "Just get our stuff ready in case we need to run."
I look at our packs, ready to grab them. My heart rate increases.
"You're scaring me." I tell him.
"I'm sorry." he says. "We'll just wait for it to go. Oh no, there's another one."
"What are they?" My voice raises but it remains a whisper.
"Mutts." says Ryno. "Ugly ones. Like me."
"Not the time." I groan.
"Their bodies look like crocodiles or something, I don't know." he says.
"What?" I say. "Crocodiles? Are they those reptiles that live on land and water, and have a big bite?"
"Yeah, pretty much." says Ryno. "They are coming closer. We're going to have to do a run. I think we can outrun them if they chase us."
Ryno pops his head back in to sling two of the packs. I slowly put the other one over my arm. Luckily, everything has already been packed.
"Let's just walk out slowly first." he says. "I'm going to keep an eye out for them in case they charge. You keep looking around."
Ryno crawls out of the shelter first and keeps his eyes to the right. I crawl out next to see what creatures he is talking about.
I freeze. They are hideous looking large flat lizards. They have bloated looking bumps all around their face and body. They look a little shiny, like they've been wet. They probably came from out from the lake since that is where it is around. They're not the worst and deadliest-looking muttations I have seen, but the worst thing about them right now is that,
"They're looking straight at us." I warn Ryno.
"I know." he says. "Just keep moving slowly and looking around."
I do as he says. We take a few steps, but I'm nervous keeping my eyes away from those things, no matter how hard they are to look at. They could kill us, and their skin looks tough enough that Ryno's sickle wouldn't do much damage. We're in real danger here.
"Run!" Ryno booms.
"Huh?"
He takes off and my slightly delayed reaction follows him, not before seeing one of the reptiles, running straight towards us.
"It's fast!" I shout.
"So fast!" he shouts back, then I see his head turn my way briefly. "Too fast!"
I look behind, and the reptile has made up some ground, and it does not show signs of tiring. Another one of the creatures is not far behind. And we have not even ran that far.
"Fuck!" yells Ryno. "We're going to have to climb!"
"Climb?"
"Adrenaline is a hell of a drug!" bellows Ryno. "It will take you up! That tree!"
Ryno points to the eucalyptus we are running straight towards. "Jump, don't stop!" he screams.
Ryno reaches the tree a while before I do, and appears to run a few metres up the tree, then he reaches one of the lower branches attached to the trunk, and pulls himself up with ease. It must at least two and half metres up high. I doubt I can reach that at all. I'm even more surprised by Ryno. I wish he had told me his talent was climbing trees instead of whatever he did with the banana.
I have no time to think about that. I'm approaching the tree at a fast speed. I have to jump. I hope the reptiles don't know how to climb like they run. Or else this will just be unfair.
I hear the stamping of the reptiles feet. How they manage to pack much power in those small legs is beyond me. But they are gaining on me. But I am also at the tree now.
I leap and wrap my arms and legs around the tree. I slide down slightly, causing some of the bark on the trunk to scratch my arms and chest. I don't feel any pain. My mission now is to grab Ryno's hand, who is offering it to me from his branched platform.
"Grab it!" he shouts.
I try to shuffle a bit higher up on the tree in order to reach him. I hold out my arm and only our fingers can touch, so there would not be a strong enough grip. He tries to bend lower and we aree able to hook each other's hand. I let go of the trunk so he is able to pull me up and I can grab the branch with my other hand.
Then I feel a sharp tug from my foot.
"Argh!" I scream, and I look down to see one of the reptiles leap high enough to bite onto my boot, pulling me down.
"Get rid of your shoe!" orders Ryno. I try to, but it's no use. The reptile is biting into my shoe, and I can feel its teeth pressing into my flesh. The pain starts to seep in.
"I can't!" I yell back.
"Come on..." Ryno grunts as he tries to pull me up with just one arm, the other on a higher branch to keep his balance. But gravity is working with the reptile here, and I am feeling tugged down a lot stronger than pulled up.
It is worse when not only one, but two other reptiles are holding onto the one that has gotten my foot, increasing their strength. At the same time, I feel my grip with Ryno go more slippery from the sweat and looser.
No, we're losing here. If the reptiles get their way, I will be ripped apart by their strong jaws, and it's looking that way. I don't know for another way to escape this, and how Ryno can pull me up.
"Henry, fuck, I can't." Ryno says sounding defeated, but he doesn't give up the grip.
No, I can't bring Ryno into this. I want him alive. I don't want him to die with me. He needs to survive.
Just like that, this is going to be the end. I know I have felt like that many times before, but these are muttations who would not change their mind about killing me. Unlike a human, they will not hesitate. I am going to die, on my birthday. I have my final thoughts before I meet my grisly deaths. I'm sorry mom. I'm sorry Denary. I'm sorry Jovan. I'm sorry Beetee.
"I'm sorry, Ryno." I say. "Goodbye."
I wriggle hand out of his grip.
"Henry, no!" Ryno screams guttural.
I fall to the ground, hard on my stomach. I let the reptiles do what they wish.
/y9gsc6tk
Next: 32 - The Explosives; The Coalition Division Two (11.2)
