Jason Baize (17) D8M
The gong went off and my feet were flying. A million thoughts were going through my head, my brain avoiding the clarity it would so desperately need at exactly that moment. I thought about how we all waited to take our first step until after the gong had gone off instead of trying to jump at just the right second before it did. I thought about how there was a Career next to me and another one all the way across the Cornucopia. Did that matter? Did I really need to keep track of the Careers farthest from me? Nothing mattered but whether I lived and yet everything seemed to matter all at once.
My foot slipped and the phrase Fire hazard! raced through my brain. Yes, there were fire hazards in the Cornucopia. Those fire hazards were why I bothered with going in there in the first place. My hands grasped at whatever it was I had tripped on and I found a water bottle beneath my feet. It was full, and it went directly into my shirt. I was too panicked to look through my clothes for pockets.
A sudden pressure hit my chest and I assumed I had been stabbed. I'd heard that that felt like getting punched and just figured it had to be the case. When I didn't die I realized that I had been, surprisingly enough, punched. I had no way to tell how long I had been on the ground, but it was long enough to overstay my welcome. I hopped up as fast as I could with my hands crossed in front of my face, hoping my attacker would fall down. She didn't; she just took a step back, but it was enough. I turned from her and ran, hoping she'd decide I wasn't worth her time.
She did. By the time I had turned around she'd spun as well, leaving us racing in opposite directions. Someone had a distance weapon; I could see people falling long past where they should have. Luckily, I had an easy enough way to get out of range from most weapons. I hit the point where the ground turned to rock and just kept running, ignoring how quickly my ankles were bound to turn on terrain like that. It was a difficult run but a useful one. I was going downward, hidden behind boulders and stones so that no one would be able to see me. And I had farther to go.
As soon as I hit the bottom of the rocks I started looking for what I knew I would find. Most of the rocks were huge, though there were some smaller stones and pebbles. The rocks were stacked on top of each other, often awkwardly, with gaps between them. With screams surrounding me and cannons deafening me I frantically searched for a gap that I could fit through. The first one I fit through was barely large enough for me. So were the second and third. I thought for sure that by the time I got a good gap someone would kill me. But then I saw the perfect hole.
I tried to dive through the hole just to get caught on my traitorous hips. I had to wriggle and writhe and I could feel my skin tearing where it was caught, but I did manage to force myself through. I fell to the ground, which was actually a rock beneath the other rock, and looked around where I was. There was a cavern maybe four inches taller than I was, with enough space between the rock directly above me and the rock adjacent that I could move around a bit. If I was willing to squeeze again I could move into another connected cavern and then another. It was a gorgeous shelter.
Slowly the cannons dwindled out. The screams slowed down while people found their own caves or shelters on the plane. I thought I could hear sobs but couldn't be certain. As likely as anything the noise was just my brain trying to fill in what I knew I should hear. So many loners had died and all of the tributes would celebrate. Anyone who didn't have an ally would die without mourning from anyone in the Games. Only their families would care and my ears rang with the sobs that should have been. Still, the sobs were better than the screams. I could take what I got.