Chapter 25- Iry Coppersmith
The cannon scares me, making me trip and fall over a trailing vine. My hands sting; something sharp on the ground cut them and now my right hand is bleeding. I have to be strong, for Terra, so I don't let myself cry. It hurts, though.
Who's dead? That makes eight for today, after the bloodbath cannons went off earlier. Maybe the Careers are out hunting tributes, and so they're hunting me.
I scramble to my feet and keep running; I haven't gone very far into the jungle; instead I've been keeping to the edge between beach and forest. I don't trust anything in this arena. At least on the beach I'm able to see people coming.
Like Terra told me to do, I ran the opposite way of the Cornucopia, but I was terrified of the water and the things that might be in it. The water was deep, too, but I made it to shore okay. My clothes are soaked, but they'll dry eventually. My biggest problem now is that almost everyone else went for the supplies, and now I have none. I'm sure Terra will send me some things later, but I'm worried anyway.
I wish Terra was here. I know she's watching me right now, so I'm trying to look brave, but I'm so scared. I miss her, and Shuttle, and everyone else. Where did Azlon go? I don't even know if he went to the Cornucopia or not.
Birds twitter and talk all around my head, each of them in bright colors and beautiful. The flowers are large and colorful, but I don't touch them. Some of them will be poison, I'm sure, and I'm not taking any chances. I have to get out, as much for Terra as for me.
The island juts out toward the Cornucopia, then dips back into a little cove, before going back out again and curving to the right. Everything is quiet, except for the bird calls and a constant buzzing of insects. I walk as quietly as I can, just in case somebody is around.
Something rustles the bushes ahead of me; automatically I duck down behind a fern and peer through its leaves. Nothing appears. Did I just imagine it? No, there it is again. I'm biting my nails, I'm so scared. Maybe it's a tribute watching me back, and they want to kill me.
A scaly green lizard pops out of the bushes and runs up a nearby tree. It's okay; it's just a lizard. It's huge, though! As big as my arm! I don't think it's a mutt, but I don't know. Sometimes the mutts look normal and then they blow fire at you; I've seen Games where that happens. This lizard just ignores me, though, and keeps running up the tree. I'm safe for now.
My mouth starts to dry out after I've been walking for a while. Terra will send me water later, I'm sure, but I'm so thirsty right now. I need to find a hiding place where the other tributes won't find me. Maybe I can just sit down for a little while and rest; I've been going for at least an hour now.
Sitting at the edge of the beach lets me hear the waves; it's such a beautiful sound. I think I'd like to live by the ocean one day, when I get out of this arena.
"We're all in one piece, are you happy?" a girl's voice carries over to where I'm sitting. It's one of the Careers. I duck underneath the log I'm sitting on and hope beyond hope that the ferns in front of it hide me enough so that they won't see me. If they see me, they'll kill me.
"Not all of us are in one piece, Aggie." That's a boy's voice, maybe the boy from 2?
"Cloak was a moron for not listening to us," Aggie says, stopping right in front of my log. I don't even breathe.
"And now he's dead, so let's keep looking for water," another boy says, the boy from 4. I can see him through the leaves of the ferns in front of my log. If he looks over here, he might see me too.
"You and your water; if you weren't so insistent on getting water right away, then Cloak would still be here," Aggie says.
"Listen to me. We can live three days without water, that's it. Water is our top priority."
"I'd say that my top priority is finding the girl from 3," Aggie says.
"After water."
"Fine. Let's go find your stupid water." The Careers walk on past me, not bothering to even be quiet. I don't move, just stay right where I am. A large bug crawls by my head, and I shudder. I don't like bugs very much, and especially not by my head. I found a spider in my bed at home once, and I had to sleep in a guest room for two days.
If I go onto the beach, then everyone will be able to find me. If I stay in the jungle, then the others might still find me, but I'll be better hidden. But I don't know what's in here either. I guess there's no safe place in the arena. I want Terra to help show me the way, but she can't. I have to be Iry all by myself. I'll be brave. I can do this. Just hide until I win.
Easier said than done. I'm scared and worried.
Once the Careers' voices fade out and are replaced by the usual bird song, I climb out from under the log, brushing creepy crawlies off of my jacket. By the sounds of it, one of the Careers is already dead, and it's the boy from 1. They usually make it through the first day, so I wonder what happened to him. I probably don't want to know.
I'm not sure which way the Careers would have taken after passing by me, so I keep walking along the edge of the forest and beach the way I was, but really quietly. I hate being alone like this; I wish I had an ally. I don't like to think Terra was wrong, but maybe she was for not letting me have an ally.
The Careers were looking for water too; if I catch up to them and follow them at a distance, then I'll get water too! I'll have to be really careful, though.
It takes hours to walk through the jungle; a couple times I see more of those lizards, and once a big red bird with a curved beak came and sat in a tree fork near me. He wasn't a mutt either; just a curious bird. I wonder what kind he is. I don't see the Careers again, though, or hear them either. I'm sure I'd hear them before I see them; they weren't being very quiet when they walked past me.
I still haven't found any water; Terra will probably send me some later, so I don't have to worry too much. But I don't want to waste the sponsor money on water, when I'll need other things later on in the Games.
At the very edge of the trees, the dirt and plants make a sort of ledge, before the terrain turns into a shallow ditch and then sandy beaches. From here I can see the ocean and the sun sparkling off the water. It seems to go on forever; is that real or is it just a pretend horizon? I don't know how much of anything is real in here.
It's so, so beautiful here, though.
I'm tired after last night with almost no sleep, the start of the Games, and now walking for miles in the hot sun. Time to camp, I think. After a bit of looking around, I find two trees that are close enough together that I can lean broken sticks up against them and make a rough shelter. I doubt the instructor in Training would be proud of it, but it'll do. The trees are far enough out of the way, and hidden by ferns and flowers, that I don't think anyone will find me here.
It'll do for now. Tomorrow I'll find water and a more permanent place to set up camp. Now to wait for the sun to set and for Terra to send me some supplies.
I'm scared for the sun to set.