Dionsyus Bacchus- District One male (17)
For once the Careers were using more than one brain cell. On Tulsi's suggestion we'd all partnered up to go out hunting. Even if we were stronger and more trained, not wanting to die was a big boost. It would be stupid if one of us got killed by a lucky outlier because we thought we were invincible. The pairings would vary so none of us got too loyal to each other at the expense of the group but for the first day Arroyo was with Quarla, Tulsi was with Alysanne and I was with Charybdis. Alysanne and Tulsi were back at the cornucopia keeping watch and dressing Tulsi's wounds, which weren't bad but could still get infected if we weren't careful.
Charybdis and I made sort of an odd pair. I kept trying to mess around and make jokes but she always just gave a one-word answer or didn't even react. She seemed to have no energy or interest in her surroundings to the point where I wondered why she'd even volunteered at all. On top of that I was feeling edgy since the Arena was especially stressful and I hadn't had a drink since the Capitol. I didn't want to say I was going into withdrawal but I definitely noticed irritability and increasing desire for a drink. Totally different from withdrawal.
I fell silent and stayed that way a while as we searched for hiding Tributes. If we just found them all and killed them quickly we could get out of the Arena and be done with it. Well, not "we", but I wasn't thinking that far ahead yet.
As far as I could tell the Arena was just a bunch of identical rooms filled with desks and file cabinets. It probably wasn't like that forever- Charybdis and I just weren't at the interesting parts yet. In fairness we'd only gotten through three rooms. There were a lot of desks to check behind and a lot of cabinets that could fit one of the younger Tributes and just plain a lot of hiding places. It was going to take forever to search them all and I was painfully aware that each room took long enough that while we were searching one a Tribute could easily sneak into one we'd already searched. Frankly I wasn't sure how we were ever going to finish this. In my estimation this Games could take months.
"Anything?" I asked when Charybdis came out of a cubicle.
"Yup. Two Tributes. I got them both," she said, then rolled her eyes. "Why do you always ask? You'll hear it if I find anything."
Wow, guess she does have some energy.
Charybdis Kincaid- District Two female (18)
A skyscraper was the exact last Arena I should be in. Every moment of the Games in the back of my head I would be aware of the top floor and the edge and how easy it would be to go over it. I didn't have any plans to but most people didn't know how soul-crushing it was to have it in your mind.
So think of something else. People couldn't choose not to think about something but they could cover it with so many other thoughts it was just a still-heard whisper among shouts. In a somewhat ghoulish turn I turned my thoughts to where I would hide if I was an outlying Tribute. Under a desk was cliché but for exactly that reason it couldn't be ruled out. It was just so stupid that I honestly wasn't expecting to find anyone when I looked there and I could easily miss one of the desks. I slowed down even more as I looked through each monotonous cubicle. They blurred into desks made of some cheap-looking fake material, old boxy computers from before we had holoscreens, rolling black chairs and sometimes plastic plants.
Out of pure boredom I tried thinking of some more interesting places I might hide. The first thought came quickly. I looked up at the ceiling. It was made of a grid of white tiles with little gray specks. I climbed up on a desk. Dionsyus came into the cubicle after me and gawked up at the sight.
"Help me get into the ceiling," I said. Every adventure book and silly kids' movie had a scene where people snuck around in air ducts or ceilings. If I was hiding from me it would be the first thing I thought of, whether or not I actually did it. It was a sure bet at least one of the Tributes had tried it.
"Yeah, I was gonna suggest that," Dionysus said. He joined me on the desk and shielded his eyes as I pushed up on a tile and a little shower of dust and grit fell. I could reach the ceiling easily but even on the desk it was a little higher than my head. I hopped up to peek, realizing too late that it would serve me right if a Tribute was hiding up there and bopped me on the head for being so reckless. My head cleared the ceiling tile up to my nose and I saw the tiny dark space above the tiles.
"Anyth-" Dionysus cut his question short as he remembered what happened last time he asked.
"Someone could definitely fit," I said. "I didn't see anything but I couldn't see very far in the dark." We'll have to look again in other parts of the room, I thought. Then I sighed and folded my arms. And we'll have to do this in every room in the building.
Fleur Laveau- District Eleven female (18)
Some things are just fate. All my life I'd been told I was born of a witch. People looked the other way when I walked by because they were afraid of the evil eye. Superstition and prejudice had followed me all my life and I was about to make it all true. I stood in the basement of a skyscraper Arena and I was about to make a death potion.
Bottles upon bottles dotted the shelves all around the room. Tall bottles, short bottles, thin bottles, thick waxy bottles. Some of them had simple labels like "bleach" or "window cleaner" in already-mixed solutions. Others were larger and more industrial and bore alien and complicated chemical names. I was no Three or Five. I didn't know anything about chemistry. But I knew what a symbol meant if it was as simple as a skull.
"Here's one," Walcott said. She hefted a gallon jug of clear liquid, looking at the grinning skull emblazoned on its side. Hydrochloric acid, the label read. Concentrated. I took the jug and set it to the side. It might be enough on its own but it was hard to tell. Walcott took the other eleven behind it and added them to the first. I kept searching until I found one last addition I hoped would set us over the edge: concentrated sulfuric acid, labeled as for cleaning toilets and absolutely not for direct contact.
"All right, let's find the tank," I said. I'd explained the plan to Walcott and hopefully it worked as I'd described it. I was no city slicker but I knew big buildings like this had fire safety measures. I could see the smoke detector on the ceiling above us and knew every other room had one as well. I also knew there was a water tank ready and if I was building a building I would want it in the basement so it wouldn't always be putting stress on the roof.
Sure enough, Walcott and I found it just eight rooms down the hall. In the center of the room there was what looked like a giant manhole cover with the universal faucet symbol to indicate its purpose. In normal buildings they were probably locked but no doubt the Gamemakers wanted the easy source of water so Tributes wouldn't die of thirst hiding from the Careers. I knelt down and lifted the rusted metal handle, exposing the surprisingly gross and discolored water inside.
"In it goes," I said. Walcott found a bucket as I started opening the childproof chemical bottles. One bucket at a time we bailed the water out and into the drain of the sink in the corner of the room. Once it was empty we poured in every drop of the dozens of bottles we'd hauled with us in three trips. The air took on a sharp bitter noxiousness until Walcott and I started taking turns pouring with the other behind us ready to pull the pourer backwards if she fainted and started to fall in.
As soon as the last bottle was poured I shut the lid. It turned my stomach thinking about what lay underneath and I had a particularly upsetting intrusive thought about pouring a glass and taking a drink. With my throat burning and my eyes stinging I found a sturdy bucket and stood on it underneath the smoke detection knob in the ceiling as Walcott found something to whack it with. She was still looking when I saw it had a simple off switch, which I flipped.
We went out into the hall outside the room and stood under the hallway fire detector. It was time to find out if the final piece would come together or it was all for nothing. It's a smoke alarm, right ? I held up the handful of cleaning powder in my hand and blew. A cloud of dust whirled around the smoke detector. After an instant, I heard something click. Walcott and I dove through the doorway as the floodgates opened.
Just a note to self, Fleur got sponsored some food but I didn't have room to mention it here.
