Thank you to everyone who's read this far! Your support is everything to me. I am pondering over a new short chapter collection, featuring on an ally from each District, from any of my stories. If you have a character you'd like to see a viewpoint chapter from, let me know! Take care and stay safe.

CJM

Chapter 46- Iry Coppersmith

"And stay away!" I shout, stomping on the last of the feathers that are scattered over the pink sand. The mutts are gone; I killed them and the rest disappeared yesterday; but the feathers they dropped stayed on the beach all night. I shouldn't shout; Terra must be upset with me right now, but I don't care. I don't! The mutts are gone, and I never want them to come back; I want every reminder that they were here, and that they hurt me, completely gone.

"Don't come back." I make sure I'm quieter this time, even though I want to scream the whole arena down. If the world falls apart, maybe Terra will come and get me. "And don't cry," I whisper to myself. The mutts made me cry, right after I told myself I wouldn't again. I won't anymore; nothing in here can make me cry now.

I stab the point of my new sword into the sand, cutting at the feather again and again, until it's a multicolored mess of broken parts strewn over the pink grains of sand. It's gone; the mutts are really gone. Breathing hard, I sit back and cradle the silver sword in my lap. Terra saved me- no, she helped me save myself. I don't need saving, I don't think. Not anymore.

I'm Iry Coppersmith, I'm thirteen, and I fought off a flock of mutts by myself. Terra sent me the sword, but I killed the mutts without her help. And I'm okay. I'm okay. I didn't want a weapon; I didn't want to hurt anyone with it. So I won't. I'll hold on tight to my sword, this gift from my sister, and I'll hide until the end, just like she said to do.

The sword sits in my lap for a few minutes, so I can watch the sun shine off it and dance on the trees around me. I never used anything like this in Training; I stayed away from the weapons, like Terra told me to do. I did everything she asked of me, and it worked, didn't it? I haven't been a target at all; everyone's just forgotten about me.

I almost wish I could see somebody else. I haven't seen anyone besides- besides Celosia, in five days. Nobody told me that I would be lonely here, but I am. I'm so lonely. I feel like I'm the only one left, and the Gamemakers decided to leave me here in this hot arena that keeps getting hotter.

Pulling the sword off my lap and resting it next to me, I reach back with my other hand for my water bottle, which comes off the ground way too easily. I thought I had more water than this. There's hardly any left, and that's not good, especially today. It's so hot; hotter than any other day before.

I squint up to the sky; not a cloud in sight. "Hey, Terra?" I ask. "Can I have some more water?" She's been really good about sending me stuff I need, and we have to have lots of sponsors, since I got my sword yesterday. Weapons aren't cheap, I know that. "Please?"

The parachute should be dropping any minute now. She has to send something, doesn't she? Maybe she doesn't know; maybe she didn't hear me. "Terra? Shuttle? Can I have more water, please?" The sky stays blue and empty. No parachutes.

My heart skips a beat; I don't want to run out of water; that's how you die really fast in here. I didn't kill those birds, didn't hit- hit Celosia with that rock to die of dehydration now. And if they're not sending me supplies, that means that something's gone wrong at home. If Terra could, she would send me something. And if she's not, that means she can't.

So what do I do now? Absentmindedly I loop my fingers through my mother's ring, tugging it down until the chain cuts into the back of my neck. I have my ring; it brought Terra home to me, and it's going to bring me home to her. I know it will. But first I have to figure out what to do about water. Where was the last place I saw it?

The mountain. That's where I had it last, the mountain with the stream, where I hid in the bushes and found the rock and- and-

I don't want to go back there. Never. The Capitol people will go there and see where Celosia died, where I killed her, and they'll talk about it and laugh, but I'll never go back there myself. I can't go back.

So where do I get water then? It's not going to be on the beach, which means that I'll have to go into the jungle, and I don't want to do that either. I promised myself that I wouldn't be scared anymore, but I am, and I'm scared of the mountain, and of the jungle.

I chance a look back up the sky, just in case a parachute is dropping. "Woven? Woof?" I ask, but I doubt they're listening. Just keep me alive, and I'll do the rest. I think I can do it; I can hide out until the others are gone. I'll hide where they'll never catch me. But I need food and water to do that.

My mind made up, I use my sword to push myself up to standing. Sword in one hand, I grab my water bottle with the other and drink half of the last lukewarm water still at the bottom. I don't like warm water; it doesn't make you feel any less thirsty. A cup of icy water- if I could have anything right now, I'd have that.

I want to go home so badly. Will it be different when I finally make it back? Will Ribbons remember me; will Deecey and Alex and Eli still like me after everything that's happened here? What about Aja and Carding, my friends?

What's going to happen?

I can't think about that right now; it's too much to worry about all at once. I'll get home, show Terra I'm okay, and then I can figure everything else out. I won't break; they can't make me break; I won't let them see me break. I won't let Terra see me break, because then she'll shatter and my sister will be in more pieces than I am.

They can't break me. I won't let them hurt Terra like that again.

"I can do this. I can go into the jungle," I whisper to myself while I roll up my blanket and parachutes from the past few days, tucking in the last of my food and the iodine too. Something in the trees screeches, and I jump about a mile. No, no I can't. The mutts are in there, and so are the other tributes, and both of those want to kill me.

Iry, just go and find water and get out again! Stop being a scaredy cat!

I want to stop, but I still am. I hate hiding, hate being scared of everything here; but everything wants to kill me, so I should be scared. I could go around and around like this forever, until my water runs out and I die. I have to go into the jungle, and I can't be scared while doing it. So there!

I'm still getting up my nerve when the heat drops and a cold wind blows in from the water. Something's changing, and it feels grey. Grey and cold and different. I don't know if different is bad yet, but I'm not going to be scared of it. Instead, I turn, chin held high, and I face the ocean like it's another tribute or a mutt.

Even the water looks grey; the waves are rougher than they were a few minutes before. The sky right about the horizon is a muddy grey and yellow, like the sun wants to come back, but the clouds won't let it. That cold wind comes back and hits me in the face; it smells cool and clean, just like the taste of a glass of ice water. It tastes like rain. Rain!

As fast as I can, I uncap my bottle of lukewarm water and stick it in the sand so it stays upright, before grabbing my blanket and pulling it over my head, tarp side up. The underside is warm and soft, and it almost reminds me of my blankets at home. And because it gets me remembering home, I remember all the things I love there too.

My room, painted light pink, but darker than the sand around me. My bed, all carved wood and canopied, which is as soft as the beds in the Capitol, and covered in soft blankets, so that when I climb in, it's like I'm being hugged on all sides. Ribbons likes to hide in the folds and jump out at me, and it used to make me laugh. I know Deecey is looking after her, but I miss my cat.

Sometimes Aja and Carding would come to play in my room after they were done work and we were all done school, but I never let them stay the night, even when they wanted to, and I wanted them to. I just didn't want them to hear Terra, because then she'd be upset when she woke up. I had to protect her.

These are just a few things in the world I love and loved, and it feels so wrong that I'm sitting on a cold beach, while the rain starts to drop around me, tinkling into my bottle. If it rained at home, Terra would make us tea, or Shuttle would, and we would sit around the table out of the cold. Terra hates the cold. And sometimes we would be happy, and sometimes we would be sad, but we would always be together.

I want to win; I want to go home to everything I'm missing. I want to tickle Eli until he laughs, and I want to skip rope with Aja and Carding again. I want to hug Shuttle and Woven and Woof, and I want to hold onto my sister and never let go. She'll bring me home; she promised.

I promise I'll help you get me out, I think. I killed Celosia, I killed the bird mutts; I can do this. I can win. I'll do what it takes to go home, even though I'm different and Terra might not even know me when I see her again.

Even though I'm hurt and I'm scared, and I've hurt people and done horrible things, Terra- I'm still your Iry. I'm still Iry, just not the same one that left my sister on the roof of the Training Center. So I'm going to win, for me, for Terra, for Celosia, because it's my fault she won't. Every second I spend on this beach with a blanket over my head brings me closer to the moment when we can all be together again.

I'm going to hide and stay a secret from the others as long as I can, and I'm going to be smart about it, so that I can go home and we can all be a family again.

I promise, Terra.