Thirty-two – The Explosives

The Coalition – Division Two (11.2)

But there are no sharp pains. No teeth in my flesh. No tearing at my limbs.

"Henry!" I hear Ryno continue sobbing.

I'd be crying as well, having to die in front of him like this, except that I am not dead. I'm still very much alive.

And so are the reptiles. I feel them clawing at my back. No, not my back. My pack. They are attempting to pull it from my body, but all it does is pull my shoulders back, where the straps are around.

What is this? They don't want me, but they want our supplies? No, they should take me only, so Ryno can get my pack for himself when I am gone.

I turn around so I lie on my pack, but that's the big mistake. The creatures seem to do everything to get these supplies, and that includes biting and scratching their way to it.

"Henry!"

The reptiles try to bite the straps on my shoulder, but they puncture my shoulder, upper arm, and the side of my chest instead. They also try to get under my back. I see blood start to seep from the wounds and stain the reptiles' teeth. I start to reconsider. I bae been given another chance. They're not going to kill me. They just want my supplies. But if I keep fighting, I will die of blood loss or infection, and that would be on me.

I turn back around on my side and pull my arm outside of the strap. One of the reptiles unnecessarily makes a big bite on my hip, possibly by mistake. I keep rolling to free my other arm from the pack. The reptiles pull it free in their mouths, and together with the pack, they run away. I lie, exhausted. Tired, bleeding.

"Henry!" I hear Ryno shout above me.

I turn back on my back. The pain from the wounds increase now that the danger is over, and I am relaxed.

"Oh, Henry!" Ryno jumps softly on the branch. "You're alive! You're alive!"

"Are they still there?" I ask weakly.

Ryno is able to hear me. "No, they are still around. They took your stuff!"

"Don't jump down." I groan.

"You're bleeding! I need to help-" He seems to be looking at the reptiles. I hear ripping sounds. "They're destroying the pack!"

"That's why don't jump." I tell him. "They will take yours, too."

"But you need some assistance." says Ryno. I just shake my head.

"They're coming back." he says.

I hear the reptiles, but they just waddle around expectantly under Ryno's branch, seeming to wait for him to drop his packs. They ignore me on the ground. Once again, I am not meant to die.

No one is. I hear faint screaming but no cannon anywhere yet. I don't know if the screaming is real or in my head, though.

"How long are they going to stay?" asks Ryno. "I need to help you right now."

"I'm fine." I say. "Just hang on."

I see Ryno reluctantly nod. "You hang on too. Please."

The reptiles seem to stay there forever. I wonder if they will actually be a nuisance for the rest of the Games and Ryno is stuck up there if he wants to keep his supplies. I try to keep as still as I can so as to not exacerbate any of the bleeding while we wait.

But soon enough, the creatures leave south to the lake. Ryno makes sure to wait in case they return, but I can see him itching to jump down and tend to me.

When the birds return to the trees and resume their chirping, Ryno makes his way down and immediately tries his best to hug me.

"Fuck, Henry, you scared the shit out of me." he says. "I really thought you were going to die."

"Me too. You're really not okay with me dying?" I tell him. "I've told you all I know about the Careers. Me dying will improve your chances to win-"

"Of course not!" he shouts. "Don't be stupid. Anyway, are you okay? Are you able to walk?

"Yeah, I think so." I say, sitting myself up. "They didn't get my leg or anything."

"But they got your arms pretty bad." says Ryno. "I'll fix you up in the shelter if you can walk. Not in the open."

"Yeah, I can make it there." I say, standing up. "Just have to make it quick so I don't lose too much blood."

"Thankfully, you're not bleeding too much." says Ryno, and he helps me up. "Let's go."

He has his hand on my back the whole walk back. Fortunately we didn't run that far from the reptiles, because we're back in minutes.

I sit down against the wall of the shelter where the trunk of the tree is, and Ryno fumbles through the packs.

"What did we lose?" I ask.

It appears we lost the second pack I obtained, which was from the Careers, that carried one explosive, one skin, one large bottle of water, all the rest of the string, one pair of the night-vision goggles, the awl, one first-aid kit, and most importantly, one pack of crackers. We lost a whole third of our supply and cut our remaining time in the game by a third. This is not good. But at least we are alive.

Ryno uses what water we have to clean off the blood surrounding my wounds, drying it off with his shirt. There are around four shallow ones on my shoulders and a deeper one on my left. There are also a few shallow cuts on the left side of my chest, and I offer my side to Ryno to clean a deep wound in my hip.

"Your dump tractor is bigger than I thought." he says.

"My what?" I question. "Anyway, can you get the alcohol if we still have it?"

Ryno gasps. "Are we drinking tonight for your birthday?"

"Huh?" I ask. "No, it's for disinfection."

"I know." Ryno pulls out the rubbing alcohol from another pack. "But are you sure? It's going to hurt, and I think it takes longer to heal..."

"I'd rather live than die off from a stupid infection." I tell him. "And I know soap and water is better, but we don't have that. Just do it. Just a bit, though."

"Okay, here goes." says Ryno, and pours a bit of the alcohol on my shallow bites.

I wince at the stinging sensation.

"Ouch, that hurts." Says Ryno.

"What?" I ask. "How?"

"Sorry, it's just seeing it, seeing you, I- never mind."

He proceeds to clean my other wounds with the alcohol, and I grunt at the deeper ones.

"This is not what I wanted for you to experience on your birthday." comments Ryno. "What kind of fucking gift is this?"

"I'm okay." I say. "Just still sticking with you is enough."

Ryno smiles as he gets the band-aids.

"Your wounds are super- superfish- superface-"

"Superficial?" I help him out.

"Yes, that's the one." he says. "So we'll save the bandages for worse things. Luckily we didn't lose the band-aids."

He sticks on the strips on each of my wounds, requiring a few more on the deeper ones.

"There we go." says Ryno.

I thank him sincerely.

"No problem." he says, and we look in each other's eyes for a while. "Anyway, we should just rest for the whole day, especially you."

"How's your toe and your stomach?" I ask him.

Ryno smacks his abdomen. "Better."

"That's great!" I exclaim. "Do we still have water?"

"Just enough for the day." he tells me. "I'll get some water at the end of the day. For now, I need to feed you."

Ryno stuffs a cracker in my mouth.

"Urf." I say, my mouth full. "You need to eat too."

"I will." he says. "Nobody died during that time, right?"

"No." I confirm. "They were only going for the supplies."

I realise that the creatures were not going for the weapons. I still have the knife in my belt, and none of the reptiles tried to bite it off. They only wanted the packs, or the food and water, specifically.

"We still have our weapons." I say. "They don't want us to survive. They're forcing us to fight."

"We will!" says Ryno. "They just have to be patient. Look, they delayed us because they made you have to rest."

And rest it is. For the whole day. The only good thing today is that Ryno is still with me. Not much else happens. No deaths and no gifts, even though we are in need of more food. The creatures have made us starve even sooner than expected, and I do not want to look like Resa did.

Even Ryno is getting restless. He asks for me to sing the Wheat Song three different times, and can only find conversation in asking how we're going and what colour his urine is. It does tell us that we're in need of more water, though, so Ryno goes to refill and purify our four remaining water containers.

I could have come with him, but he insisted that I rest. I was worried about him going alone, especially if the creatures are still there, but he returns shortly with filled bottles and skins. He seemed clearly worried about me being alone, from his rushed behaviour.

"No reptiles?" I ask.

"They're gone." he says. "But water is here. No gifts?"

I shake my head.

"But we really knead some dough." he whines.

"Was that another pun?"

"I'm sorry you couldn't get a better birthday." mumbles Ryno. "It's miserable."

"Hey, I'm glad you're with me for it." I reply. But he's right. This has been miserable. I have sustained a lot of cuts on a day that I would have been happy with my family.

Ryno looks at my watch. "What's the time?"

"It doesn't work." I reply. "I thought you knew that-"

"It's time to check on the snares." he says, getting up. "It's about to get dark."

"I'm coming." I tell him. "I'm fine and I need to stretch myself out."

Ryno is okay with me coming, but he insists on carrying the packs. We go to each snare. Nothing. No change on another.

When Ryno leads our way to the third snare, he stops, gasps and bends down to the ground.

"What is it?" I ask him.

He closely examines the ground. I don't see any difference to other parts of the garden. He hovers his hand over it and picks up a few fallen leaves.

"There was a rabbit here." he posits. "It ran around from here, saw a cracker, and got ensnared in one of our traps!" He makes a surprised and happy face at me.

I make the same face, impressed by how he could tell from the fine tracks. "How could you tell?"

He points to our snare up ahead which I did not know was close. "There's a rabbit just trapped over there."

"Oh, fuck you." I say, running to the snare. A grey, plump rabbit, still alive but unmoving, has its foot caught in the wire of our loop.

"We got one!" I shout, but I look at the animal. I mean, it's just a rabbit. It isn't like a dog or anything, but I feel sorry for it. It's just living, like us. I see it stare at our faces, its nose wiggling rapidly. I've never killed an animal bigger than a massive moth before. I don't know how I'm going to kill this rabbit-

"Dead!" Ryno runs a knife through the rabbit and I stifle a scream. He cuts the wire and holds the dead animal up by its foot. "Food!"

I try ignore the trauma of the poor rabbit that just got bodied and see the light of having extra food. It will provide more protein than the beef strips. Ryno and I could survive on it an extra few days alone.

"This is so needed! Thank you, rabbit!" Ryno kisses the dead animal's fur and immediately gags and spits. He continues speaking. "We can cook it tomorrow. Make a fire. Save the crackers for later."

"Job well done to us!" I celebrate, hugging Ryno quickly. "Okay, let's sleep. I'm excited to eat some tomorrow."

When we return to our shelter at twilight, we're greeted with another surprise. A parachute, filled with a basket of food.

"Bread!" yells Ryno. He grabs a roll and sniffs intensely. "Is this what love is?"

I see smaller pieces of bread inside. Bite-sized square pieces! I hold one out to Ryno.

"These are from my district!" I exclaim.

He snatches the bread and pops it into his mouth. "They've remembered!" I'm almost moved to tears from knowing my district is still rooting for me to win. They have sacrificed some of their money to show support.

The basket also contains a carrot and a bunch of grapes.

"This is heaps!" I shout.

The anthem plays, and both of us quickly check to see that there have been no deaths today, but most of the time we pick up and smell all the food we have as if it satisfies our hunger.

I take the bread from Ryno's hands and sniff it. "Thank you!" I showboat. "Thank you District 3. Thank you, sponsors! Thank you, people!"

Ryno is sniffing the odourless carrot. "Yes, thank you!" He spreads his arms and accidentally smacks me with the carrot, but he doesn't seem to notice. "We love you!"

With the basket, we have now doubled our food supply. There is also the rabbit, which I thought would be the best news of the day, but no, I have received more. This birthday just became a whole lot better.

There's a change in our nightly routine, though. Because the rabbit and the basket of food is technically out in the open and cannot be covered, we've decided to take shifts sleeping in the night to keep watch, protecting the food from other animals and also ourselves from other tributes.

Ryno volunteers to take first watch and wears the night-vision goggles. I bid him good night, and because of the good news today which bodes well for our future, I sleep quite quickly.

I awaken to Ryno wiggling my nose with his fingers and his gentle whispers of "Henry, wake up."

"My turn?" I ask.

Ryno hands me the glasses and quickly slides into his sleeping position. "Yeah, I'm so tired..."

"Ryno?"

He doesn't respond because he starts snoring. I sit myself up so I don't fall asleep automatically. Much like the day, not much happens in the night. I take a look at the basket to remind me of the joyful moment hours ago. I check the rabbit, which is tightly wrapped in my jacket for protection. It produces an unpleasant dead meat smell that isn't near as bad as some of the smells I have smelled before. I rewrap it. Ryno sleeps through me moving the whole time.

I think about what's happening in the rest of Panem right now. Most of the districts are asleep, including my mother, Denary, and Algo. At least, I hope they're asleep. In the Capitol, though, I feel like the die-hard fans of the Games are awake, never wanting to miss a moment. However, the gamemakers are nice enough to not change the game dramatically at night to let the viewers sleep without worrying about missing a death.

It will be Day Nine in a few hours. And with nine tributes left, the betting must be ramping up. The spotlight would be on these remaining tributes, and they would probably be interviewing our families now, or have done so already. There's not a better time to do it when these tributes survive after a day or two with no deaths.

Then I hear a small whirring noise fly by my ear. Mosquitoes. I hate them. I would have done better sleeping and not knowing they're hovering around our shelter right now. I realise we forgot to wear insect repellent, mostly because we were too distracted by the additional food, and also because insects have not really been a nuisance for us so far.

Until now.

I hear more whirring. I want to kill them mainly because I don't want them around. The mosquito bites are one thing, but the fear of them going into my ear or other orifice is too much. But they're so hard to see in the dark, even with the night-vision glasses.

Yet I do see a few thin figures in the air that I can't keep track of, seeming to disappear and reappear randomly. We've never had a problem with mosquitoes before, and so the presence of them now seems suspicious. Are they muttations? What will happen if one of them bites me? Will the inflammation be worse, or even deadly?

I get more aggressive in me swatting them away. I try to look for the insect repellent, but every time I turn to the packs, I hear another that I have to kill. I absolutely despise the sound they make. I kill about seven by the time I find the insect repellent, but I hear many more. I spot one land on Ryno's face. I haven't been protecting Ryno! What if he's been bitten? I instinctively slap the mosquito, which is unfortunately on Ryno's cheek.

His snoring stops as he stirs quickly. "Hey... What?"

"Sorry." I say. He probably only got one hour of sleep, at most. "There are so many insects."

"Not locusts, I hope." Ryno says. He's probably had an experience of a crop blight with them.

"No." I answer, slapping another. "Mosquitoes."

He asks me to hand him the insect repellent so he could apply some to both of us, while I have the vision advantage to kill some more.

"Mind using your jacket to cover the shelter?" I ask Ryno as he's spraying himself with the repellent. "Reduce the amount of space they can enter?"

"But, the cold." Ryno complains, but he concedes anyway. "Are they bad ones?"

I don't know. I feel my skin and my arms for any bites. I feel a small bump on my cheek that didn't seem to be there before. But it doesn't feel more than a small itch.

"I've got a bite." I say. "But I feel fine. It feels small."

"Where?"

Because of his blindness in the dark, Ryno pokes my eyes, nostrils, mouth, until he finds the bite with his finger.

"You're sure it's not just a pimple?" he asks.

"You're a pimple." I retort. "No, it's a bite. But I think it's just a normal mosquito."

"Do you think they're attracted to the food?" he asks. "Why now?"

"I don't know." I say. "Maybe it's just a bad day- Holy fuck!"

I see a swarm enter the shelter from between the spaces of the wall and the jacket.

Even with the insect repellent, it's no use. There's too many of them and it's my biggest nightmare. The whirring sounds are overwhelming. I start to flail my arms around to whack as many of them as I could, and I make sure to close my mouth so none of them could go inside. Ryno isn't so lucky. I hear him gag and spit several times. We whack each other, constantly trying to get rid of the pests.

Either we have killed most of them or they have had enough and left. Ryno and I stop.

"The fuck?" yells Ryno. "Do you think that was controlled?"

"Seems too weird not to be!" I reply. "I hated that."

We take turns reapplying the insect repellent, but as we do, we feel our skin.

"I feel six, no, seven bites!" says Ryno. "I must look terrible!"

I have around eight or nine, and they are beginning to itch like crazy.

"I hate insects." vents Ryno. "Such awful pests."

"Me too." I share. "And I'm afraid of them."

"They don't scare me." says Ryno. "But enclosed spaces do. I just feel so panicked."

"Is this shelter making you afraid?" I ask.

"Not really, because it's a little loose and there's someone else with me." answers Ryno. "But it's a little close."

"You wouldn't like the crowdedness of my district, then." I tell him. "I also can't do heights too much."

"I've never experienced heights until being on the ninth floor in the Training Center." Ryno says. "It's a lot different to being high up in a tree. Anyway, we should go back to sleep, but argh, these bites are starting to itch."

Because of the itchiness and the fear the mosquitoes will return - some do by hearing their high-pitched whirring - we are unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Ryno doesn't snore, and we keep tossing and turning, trying to stop ourselves from scratching our bites.

When light begins to shine inside our shelter, our sleeplessness is obvious. Bags under Ryno's eyes, but they're not as bad as the bites on his face. Gone is most of that handsome look.

"You're looking a little puffy." says Ryno.

"Thanks." I say, getting up. "What's the plan today?"

Ryno points to my jacket. "The rabbit."

I only now realise the risk of making a fire where we are, and it's not only the risk of alerting other tributes to our location.

"Ryno, I don't know if it's safe." I tell him. "The trees here, they're very flammable. And with what happened on the other side of the cornucopia, we could burn it down, too."

"There's no other way for us to eat this rabbit, unless we eat it raw." gags Ryno. "Are you saying the other side was burned by accident? It wasn't a gamemaker thing?"

I shrug. "We'll never be sure."

"Look, we can make a small fire that isn't next to a tree then." outlines Ryno. "We won't make a big fire so it's not too hot and we don't make enough smoke for the others to see. After it's cooked, we'll put it out."

"Alright." I agree.

"Now let's get to work." he says. "The earlier we are, the less hot it'll be."

We get up to collect some kindling and tinder wood. I notice we're seeming a little more grumpy than usual, a likely side-effect of the lack of sleep.

While Ryno skins the rabbit, I avoid the sight by setting up the fire. I light the tinder using a match, and I control the size of the flame that appears with an appropriate amount of kindling. Because we aren't using many leaves, the smoke that is produced is fortunately minimal, and doesn't rise high enough to be seen from hundreds of metres away.

Ryno has the skinned rabbit skewered on a dense, long twig and he holds it out over the flame to cook. Cooking meat with a fire in a somewhat forest looking place is what I picture when I hear survival. Outside of the fighting, this is the Hunger Games. We keep a close eye on the fire so it doesn't grow and cause anything else to catch alight, but we also stay aware of our surroundings for the other tributes.

We have not seen any tributes since Resa, almost two days ago. I wonder what is happening with all of them. The Careers are surprisingly quiet. I would have figured they would have combed the arena and had found a tribute by now. Maybe they regained access to their supplies somehow and are deciding to survive it out. That is not good news.

And how about Ringo, Dominic, Imogen, and the girl from District 6? Have District 10 found the others, or are they still separate? I'm afraid that the gamemakers will cause something to change it up and cause a death.

Ryno has been holding the stick for around twenty minutes.

"I think you're burning it." I tell him.

"It's just darkening on the outside." He argues. "Needs to make sure it's cook all the way through."

"Okay, chef Lucy." I say.

"Do you mean Lucio?" corrects Ryno.

"Yes, but Lucy works too." I say. "Let me hold the stick at least? You're probably tired."

Ryno hands me the stick and we ignore our grumbling stomachs until it's cooked and we can finally eat our "breakfast".

We put out the fire, take strips off the cooked meat and pop them in our mouth.

"Oh, it tastes just like chicken." says Ryno.

The texture is like chicken, but other than a char, it doesn't taste like anything to me. Plain. But I know I'm receiving a lot of nutrients with the meat and so I'm grateful and pick every single bone as clean as possible.

We leave more than half of the rabbit uneaten and store it in the container which I'm happy was not taken by the reptiles. We return to our shelter.

"Nine damn days." Ryno says. "What are you going to do with the explosives?"

That's right. We still have four in the two packs, and they are taking the most weight. So I will have to use them or dispose of them soon so we don't waste precious energy having to carry them for no reason.

But there doesn't seem to be much happening today. We're not planning to leave our shelter. The gamemakers released mutts yesterday, so it's unlikely they'll release some now. So maybe looking at the explosives may not be such a bad idea.

"I can try make them work for us." I say.

So I unwrap one of the explosives from the string, splitting open its outer casing. I look at the wiring inside and try to think of a solution on just how to reactivate this, and not yet figure out how it can be used as a weapon. Ryno is surprisingly interested to watch me and see how the explosive would work, but I think he just want me to say "booby trap" repeatedly.

So the bomb can be activated by a current in the wires already there, or I can attach a separate fuse that can be lit, like those old-fashioned round bombs or dynamite. However, it would be ideal for us to use the explosives as tripwires, so I would like to alter the explosive so that the release of tension of an attached wire can somehow ignite the fuse or create a current in the wire. The detonation would also have to be immediate to the contact to be a real weapon, so the job is made more dangerous when I would have to make the fuses shorter. There won't be much room for error, and not enough time to leave if I accidentally ignite the explosive mixture.

So how do I do this? For the fuse option, I could use one of Ryno's matches in the contraption, and attach it in a way so that when a wire is tugged on hard, the match strikes a spark or a flame that could light a fuse to the explosive. But the probability of this working is probably very low. For the wire option, there needs to be an electrical current coming from somewhere which a voltage high enough. Do I use a potato? I have heard it can conduct electricity, so if a wire is tugged, I could make it attach to the potato and a current would run. But again, it's a very low success rate.

I look more closely at the wires. Is there some kind of internal electrical source inside somewhere? Yes, there is! But the wires there are wisely segregated from the wires leading to the detonation. I just have to rewire them with absolute precision to make the booby trap work.

Ryno stands behind me to watch, but I shoo him away to a safe distance.

"Premature detonation is a problem." I explain. "If I make a mistake, we'll be dead."

Ryno returns to stand in front of the shelter. "How did it not detonate while we kept moving our packs around?" he asks. "Especially the one in the pack the reptiles kept ripping apart?"

"We make them so they only detonate for the purpose we want them to." I explain. "But I'm changing them now so it isn't safe at all."

"I'm worried!" he shouts. "You know, it's hot. What if the sun just lights it up?"

"Thank you for being concerned!" I say, sounding sarcastic, even though I really appreciate it. I can die at any moment right now. "But I'm working in the shade! And hey, I did this in training, so easy peasy." It is not easy at all. I rigged that trap in less than ten minutes, even though it didn't work. It is because making a booby trap from a grenade is completely different to making a booby trap with this type of explosive, especially when there aren't any batteries around in the arena.

"You got a three." notes Ryno.

"But I lived!" I argue. "Anyway, what did you do in your training session?"

"I did combat with the sickle!" Ryno appears to summon the sickle and starts to swing it around, moving and grunting as if he's fighting an imaginary opponent.

He does this until I'm ready to set up the booby trap in a proper place and attach the tripping wire.

"Let's see if this thing works." I say. "Not here, though."

We both choose to set it up outside of the South Garden in case the explosive works too well and sparks a fire that can burn the Garden down faster than we can run. Also, I decide to do it at the Southern buildings right outside of the nearest gateway from us, because we would be able to use rocks to trigger it. I have planned to rig it so that only a human can detonate it, and the rock is the best thing that can apply as much force as a human can.

We leave the gateway, the third of seven leading out of the South Garden I think, and see more buildings than usual demolished. We don't venture out much further than the rubble of the two former buildings on our left and right. Ryno keeps watch from a distance while I slowly place the explosive down between some rocks on the building on the right. I measure the amount of wire I would need to reach the other building and I cut accordingly. I tightly secure one end of the wire to the remains of a wooden post that firmly remains on the ground, and then I carefully tie the other end to a small stick of specific shape that I set in between a live wire and the detonating wire. So a good pull of the wire would dislodge the stick, and without the stick in its place, the wires would connect and cause the explosion. While I do this, I do not get electrocuted by the live wire since my skin isn't a good conductor of the tiny amount of electricity running through the wire, and a strong current isn't needed to detonate the explosive. This is the final and most crucial bit. If I accidentally let the wires touch, I will be dead.

But I don't. The wire is taut and around ten centimetres off the ground. Everything seems to be set. Now we just need to test it and see if my contraption works.

I take a large rock that is rubble from the building on our left, and run over to Ryno at the gateway, still looking around for any dangers.

"Ryno, I'm done." I tell him. "You see the wire?"

"Yeah!" he whispers. "So it's live?"

I hand the rock over to him. "Yes, now I want you to throw this rock hard at the wire like a human tripped on it."

"Alright."

"And then immediately go back and hide behind the wall." I instruct him.

"Okay." he says. "Hoping what you made worked!"

I hide behind him on the wall on the left side of the gateway, and he peeks over to see where to throw the rock. This is it. I have only spent less than an hour working on this, but I need to redeem myself. I don't want another repeat of training. I don't want every single one of my plans to fail. The people of District 3 hate it when their projects don't work.

Ryno throws the rock and immediately joins me back behind the wall. We both brace for the explosion. Nothing. No! How could this not work? Ryno and I quickly move out to see what's wrong.

"Oh, I missed." says Ryno. The rock he threw is settled around fifteen centimetres from the wire. "I threw short."

I almost hit Ryno for making me feel like an absolute failure, but that's okay. There's a second try. There's no confirmation it failed. I retrieve another rock and hand it to Ryno.

We go back in our positions and Ryno tosses the rubble and immediately hides.

"Nothing." says Ryno. "Do you think third time's the-"

A loud boom from beyond the gateway blasts our ears. We instinctively run away before I realise the trap has worked.

Ryno looks at me, excited. "You did it, dude!" He picks up me and spins me around. "Champion!"

"Okay, set me down now." I say. He does. "Let's see what happened."

We return to the site of the explosion and almost nothing of the explosive and the wire remained. There is still dust settling, but the rubble on the right building has left a semi-circular crater where the explosive was. The damage makes sense. The explosive was made to burst through a wall, not to detonate in the open air. Anybody near that would be dead instantly, or dead in an hour. I'm still in disbelief. It worked. The audience must have seen that.

"Talk about a bang! My ears are still ringing." says Ryno. "What now, Bomb Expert?"

"I'm going to make some more." I say.

And so I do. It takes me around two to three hours total to set similar traps and place them, two near the South buildings and one closer east. Ryno and I mentally take note of where we placed them so we don't accidentally trip onto our own weapons and die.

"Hope that takes some other people out." says Ryno.

That would be crazy if I do. Even more amazing, the Careers travel together. If they run into one of our tripwires and take them all out, I would be half at Beetee's level of taking multiple tributes down at once. I'd feel slightly guilty, but not as much as I would stabbing them personally. They could have watched where they were going.

Ryno and I reward ourselves with another third of the rabbit back inside the shelter. By the position of the sun, it must be around five in the afternoon.

"So this day wasn't much of a total waste." says Ryno. "Great job. Now our packs are lighter."

We can finally fit the basket of food inside one of the packs itself.

"Thanks." I say. "And thanks a lot for your help today."

"Help?" he exclaims. "I didn't do much at all. That was all you."

"Hey, where's Ryno and what have you done with him?" I ask.

"Haha, what?"

"I surprised you didn't say 'thanks, that was mostly me'." I tell him. "Or at least, 'we're allies'."

"Are you saying I'm not supposed to be humble?" he asks jokingly. "Alright, I was just saying it's all you, so when we fight another tribute, I do all the killing, and I can say that was all me."

"There he goes!" I tell him.

For the rest of the day, we dismantle our snare traps to replenish our string and wire supplies. We already have enough food for at least three more days, estimated.

We apply some insect repellent so we don't really repeat what happened last night and early this morning. Because of our hard work today and sleep deprivation, we both go to sleep immediately after the anthem concludes and shows no fallen tributes for the second day in a row. We have been stuck at nine tributes for a while. Hopefully my new traps change that.

When we wake up the next morning, there's nothing really different.

"Day ten." announces Ryno. "Do you think this place will ever burn down like you said the other side did?"

"I think so." I say. "But I reckon it will be on Day 12."

"How come?"

"The first fire happened Day 4." I say. "The reptile mutts happened on Day 8. If the pattern follows, the gamemakers might do something on Day 12, such as burn the place down."

"Interesting thinking." says Ryno. "So we have more time here."

We eat the last of our rabbit, clean off the bones. I'm concerned bacteria may have gotten to the meat by now, but we don't feel anything wrong with our stomachs. Yet.

After breakfast, we head back to the lake to refill our bottles. The water is still clean at least, and there are no signs of the reptiles that I thought resided here. I don't know how the gamemakers add or remove mutts, but there may be some entry and exit secret tunnels we don't know about.

Ryno and I discuss about what to do for the day. It might be just a day of rest for us, doing nothing, if nothing unprecedented arises. As we finish stuffing our bottles in the packs, we hear noises from along the banks of the lake east.

Ryno swears and tells me to hide. We do hide behind a thick tree near the banks, but not before I spot a blur of figures walking towards us from a while away. I can't hear their words yet, but they are getting louder.

"They're walking towards us." I say. "We should go while we can."

"No, we should just hide and hope they leave." whispers Ryno. "And even if they find us, I don't think it's the Careers, so we should be fine."

I'm not so sure. It's the tenth day, and two days before that had no kills. There's six members of the anti-Career alliance left out of nine, and it's likely the urge to attack each other now is far greater than defeating the Careers. And I don't want to join the anti-Careers now either. I feel comfortable with Ryno for the rest of the Games, and changing my situation here is too uncertain.

Their voices get louder, and I can make them out.

"So it's that tree?" A female's voice says.

"Yeah." replies a deep voice.

I whisper to Ryno. "They know where we are!"

"That's Imo and Dom's voices!" I'm guessing they're short for Imogen and Dominic. We have encountered District 10. "They won't kill us."

I pull on Ryno but he doesn't budge. I'm stuck behind this tree, heart beating faster as their words grow louder, but then they stop.

"Come on out, we're know you're there." booms a voice, Dominic's.


/y9vcr2dq

Next: 33 - The Coalition; The Coalition Division Three (11.3)