Verity wakes up Nausicaa early, before the sun has fully risen. She blinks, trying to regain her bearings.
"We're low on food. I want to explore the temple to the north east." He says. Nausicaa nods and hops up, needing to get moving if she wants any chance of becoming alert.
"I'm ready." Nausicaa grabs her small satchel and sword, and she notices Virgil grabbing his weapon. What a team they make.
The trio takes off towards the temple, and as expected, they don't run into anyone.
When they reach the temple, Nausicaa notices how cold it is, like someone turned on the air conditioner and has been letting it run for weeks without stopping. If it were a few degrees colder, she'd probably be able to see her breath.
The first room they go into is dark, narrow, and about twenty feet long. There appear to be symbols, or just shapes decorating the floor.
Verity leads, carefully stepping on the first symbol, a sun. Instantly, the symbol drops down an inch and Verity freezes. Silence.
"It's a pressure plate. I think they're individual pressure plates." Verity says, a crack in his usual calm tone.
"What does that mean? Are they trapped?" Nausicaa asks. Why can't things just be simple?
"I don't know." Verity says, looking ahead.
"We could leave." Nausicaa suggests.
"We need supplies." Verity insists, staying put.
"What if the entire temple is trapped like this? And there's no supplies to show." She tells him.
"It's a risk we have to take. We're low on food." Verity says, indicating the matter is no longer up for debate.
He notices a pattern ahead of him. After the sun, is a tree, then a wave. Then, the pattern repeats. He tells his allies this.
"So, what, the sun is the safe symbol?" Virgil asks.
"I guess." Verity takes a long breath, then jumps to the next sun symbol. The plate drops. Nausicaa feels time slows to a halt.
Nothing happens. Virgil steps on the sun symbol in front of him, and Verity jumps to the next sun. They do this, over and over again, as they traverse the hallway. Until Verity stops.
"What's wrong?" Virgil asks.
"There's no more sun symbols." Verity says. Where a sun symbol should be, there is a second wave.
"Drop your bag on one of them." Virgil instructs. Verity complies, taking the few supplies he has out of his bag, then he drops it on the first wave symbol.
As soon as the plate drops, the entire temple rumbles. Nausicaa looks up and small rocks start to fall down. Then, she sees something falling. It lands, crushing the bag in an instant. A large square of stone.
"Holy shit." Verity says. He climbs on the stone and leaps to safety. His two allies do the same.
Nausicaa looks back at the hallway, trying not to think about what could have happened.
The hallway opens up into a large stairway that leads down to a square platform stage, with matching stairs that go up directly across from them into another dark hallway.
The trio descends to the platform and takes in the giant structure. Nausicaa can't believe something of this size is sustainable. She wonders if it's Capitol crafted.
Then, there's rumbling. Stones falling. The trio prepares their weapons, adrenaline running.
Out of the darkness of the opposite hallway appears a group of men. But they're not men. Where there should be skin sits stone. These creatures are about seven feet tall and although they don't hold weapons, Nausicaa isn't confident. She's not used to this. How do you get used to mutts?
"Stay back to back. Let them come to us." Verity instructs without anyone disagreeing. The stone mutts slowly advance until the leader raises their arm in the air. They throw their fist into the ground where the Careers stand. They dodge safely, but their formation is immediately broken, with Nausicaa on one side of the platform and the boys on the other, with a large stone creature in between.
Another mutt comes for Nausicaa and she blocks his strike with her sword. She ducks under its arm and as it raises to strike again she tries to shove her sword into its back, but the metal just bounces off the stone.
"I can't damage them." Nausicaa yells to her allies.
"We need to retreat. Push forward." Verity yells, ducking under a strike. Virgil is the first to sprint forward. Nausicaa waits for an opening, and when one comes, she doesn't hesitate to take it.
Verity runs right behind her and they catch up with Virgil at the top of the stairs. They stare into the dark hallway. Fortunately, this one seems to lack pressure plates.
Virgil goes in first and Nausicaa follows. At first, there's only about an inch gap between Nausicaa's shoulders and the wall. As they descend further, that gap gets smaller, and smaller. Near the end, Nausicaa has to turn her body to the side and shimmy to be able to fit.
Virgil squeezes out of the opening and stretches out his back. Nausicaa just reaches the end when she hears a pressure plate drop, a pressure plate Virgil stepped on. As she squeezes out of the hole, the temple rumbles. She hears rocks moving.
And then the scream. Verity's blood curdling scream, Verity, who is still inside the narrow hallway, where the walls are now closing in on him.
Nausicaa freezes, her blood cold. Verity's screams get louder and louder until they stop, replaced by a single cannon.
Nausicaa can't move. She can't do anything but stare. A trickle of blood comes from the wall.
Virgil touches her shoulder and she screams.
"We have to keep moving." He says, his face calm, too calm. How is he so calm?
"We…we can't…" Nausicaa can't finish. How can he be dead? They're not supposed to die, Careers don't die like this.
A third of their alliance, dead.
"Come on." Virgil says, moving away from the tragedy. Nausicaa has no choice but to follow him.
She doesn't know where she's going. She has no idea if it's dangerous, or where she's stepping. She just continues to follow Virgil through the temple, across a bridge over a chasm, around a corner, and even through another hallway. Nausicaa nearly refuses to go through, but Virgil insists it's the only way through. She complies under the condition that she goes first.
They eventually reach what has to be the end, some kind of empty treasure room.
"Let's split up and look for supplies." Virgil instructs. He takes the right side, and Nausicaa just stands still. She glances across the left side of the room, but she doesn't see anything.
She wanders closer to the middle of the temple, where a small pedestal sits near the back wall. There's something sitting on top. A small, gold box.
Nausicaa scans the area for traps or deadly pressure plates before slowly opening the box. Inside is a single black crayon.
The hell? She picks up the box.
"Did you find anything?" Virgil's booming voice makes her jump and drop the box.
"No!" She shouts back. As she leans down to pick up the box, she hears rocks rumbling. She freezes in place, panic exploding inside her. The room slowly lights up, and she realizes a door is rising. An exit.
She's never run so fast.
Returning back to the cornucopia without any supplies and with one less Career created a melancholy mood for the rest of the day. Verity's face is the only one in the sky.
The next morning, Virgil insists they continue hunting. He takes Santiago.
Nausicaa sits as far back in the metal cornucopia as possible, her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around her leg. Rhea sits besides her, leaning her head on Nausicaa's shoulder.
A cannon firing sends a rush of anxiety through Nausicaa. Despite Rhea reassuring her over and over again that it's not Santaigo, that it's not Virgil, Nausicaa isn't convinced. Not until they return that afternoon.
Nausicaa has never felt like this before. She's never felt this out of control. She doesn't know her allies all that well, but each one that dies takes a piece of her soul with them. How is she going to survive the last three deaths?
Only one face in the sky that night, the girl from twelve. Virgil's kill, according to Santiago.
Nausicaa hasn't slept well in over a week, and she can feel the effects starting to catch up with her. As her adrenaline runs low, exhaustion will take over.
She rubs her eyes, needing to focus, needing to stay awake. She needs to be stronger. She was chosen for a reason. She cannot forget that.
She's the first to get up, so she's careful not to wake up her sleeping allies as she steps out into the sun. She see's Virgil standing a few feet in front of her, standing guard.
"What are you doing up?" He asks, more aggressively than Nausicaa appreciates.
"I'm awake." She states, too mentally drained to say much more.
"Whatever. You can stand watch." Virgil leaves Nausicaa alone. She sighs and crosses her arms, looking out into the arena. Even though it's morning, the sun is beating down on her hard. She's noticed Virgil's face has gotten more and more red with each passing day, despite his layers of protection. She's grateful she hasn't had that problem.
She hears chatter behind her and she quickly glances over her shoulder. She sees Santiago and Virgil standing to the side, whispering to one another. A chill runs up Nausicaa's spine, a feeling she's unfortunately gotten used to since rising into this arena.
Eventually, Santiago comes over to join her.
"You okay?" He asks. Nausicaa continues to stare straight ahead.
"Yeah. Yeah, what's the plan for the day?" She asks, not wanting to dive into her feelings right now. In a game of life and death, you have to leave your emotions at the door. Nausicaa wasn't prepared to witness death first hand. She wasn't prepared to take a life, and she certainly wasn't prepared to watch her allies die at her feet.
"Hunting. But, there's only nine tributes left. And we're four of them." Santiago says, rubbing the back of his neck. Nausicaa nods, wondering where those five tributes could be hiding out in this vast arena. How are they expected to find them?
"We should get started then. Who's going hunting-" The metallic taste of blood fills her throat. A sharp pain in her lower stomach. She looks down. A short blade pokes out of her stomach.
"Sorry, kid." Virgil's voice whispers in her ear. She falls to her hands and knees, knife still in her body, weak, confused, and reaching towards Santiago for help. But when he doesn't react, that's when she realizes.
How could you? She can't believe him.
Virgil raises his second knife and just before he delivers the final blow, he screams. Nausicaa can see an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, and Rhea on the other end of the bow.
"Run!" Rhea yells. Nausicaa doesn't have to be told twice.
Nausicaa takes the distraction to muster the little strength she has left and flees down into the desert. She heads south east, towards the large fortressed town that she has yet to explore. In all reality, she'd go anywhere. Anywhere but the cornucopia.
A cannon fires and she doesn't have the energy to contemplate who it belonged to. All she knows is it doesn't belong to her. As she stumbles through the sand, she rips off a piece of her shirt and wraps it tightly around her wound. The pressure helps, or so she assumes.
She reaches the walls of the town and collapses against it, sliding to sit with her back against it. She's careful not to touch the knife that's still inside her. She's not a doctor, but she knows removing it could be lethal.
The tears fall. Nausicaa has never been one to show her emotions. She's always controlled them well. These last few days, she's cried more than she has in her entire life. Her trainers always reinforced the notion of bottling up her emotions, converting it to physical strength. But right now, she lets the tears fall. And oh, they fall.
How long have they been planning to kill her? How could Santiago betray her like this? Nausicaa knows they weren't the closest back home. But there's an unspoken rule about protecting your district partner. If Nausicaa wasn't going to win, she would want Santiago to win. Now, that couldn't be further from the truth.
A parachute falls at her feet. She struggles to pull it closer to her. It's decently sized, and when she gets it open, she gasps. The highest quality first aid kit a sponsor can buy. The tears return.
She's meticulous about her next moves. She slowly opens the first aid kit, and pulls out what she'll need. Once those are separated, she takes her headband and puts it between her teeth. The last thing she needs is for her screams to attract her enemies. Her ex-allies.
Carefully, very carefully, Nausicaa gets to work, quickly removing the knife and bandaging it up to stop the bleeding. With the high quality Capitol supplies, Nausicaa is able to remove the knife, clean the wound, and quickly stop the bleeding with ease.
Now what? She has no weapons, no supplies other than this first aid kit.
Knowing they might be hunting her now, she forces herself up and finds her way inside the fortress.
Inside the walls are a few abandoned houses and stalls, and even a functioning well.
That night confirms Rhea as the one who died. She died for me. And it was wasted.