When Finnick wakes again, daylight spills between the leaves and pools on the ground in warm bright patches. The melodic cacophony of the rainforest, which had become so commonplace Finnick's brain filtered it out, seems unusually piercing to his sensitive ears. Then his fingers twitch against the shaft of his trident and awareness starts trickling in, drop by miserable drop. He's so disoriented by hunger and thirst it takes him a long moment to make sense of the foreign object sitting in front of his face. When he finally comprehends what the object is, he props himself up and takes it in shaking, blood-encrusted hands. It's a parachute. Finnick guesses the rectangular vessel hidden under it could hold about a liter of liquid, if not more. Mags hasn't forsaken him after all.
Resting inside the container is Finnick's absolution and his deliverance: Another pot of ointment, a bottle of water purifying tablets, a tin of green cookies shaped like fish. The cookies were undoubtedly sponsored by District 4, a gift indicating their continued support and encouragement. All Finnick can see is Caspia, her boots kicked up on the table, casting Finnick her brazen, indolent smile.
What takes priority? It takes all of Finnick's concentration to rally the thoughts suspended in the sludgy murk of his brain. There's definitely something wrong with his lung; every time he inhales, sharp pain explodes in his right side, making him cough and wheeze and hunch over the wound. He wants to eat. He needs to eat. But more than food, he needs water.
The river. He needs to get to the river.
Fortunately, Finnick didn't make it very far after he crawled out of the water. He makes another uplifting observation as he hobbles along, using his trident and tree trunks for support: All of the revolting oil has vanished, evaporated or drained from the arena like it had never existed. Finnick wonders if the strange fog had something to do with the oil's disappearance, if it had somehow sopped up the liquid or made it easier for the ground to absorb. At some point, he comes across the velvety leaves he used as a bandage and picks more of them, tucking them into the parachute container next to his gifts. Driven by thirst and bolstered by his extra-arena assistance, Finnick limps down to the bank and settles down next to the water, his precious trident tucked half under one of his legs.
First, he uses one of his precious purifying tablets to sanitize water he scoops up in the parachuted receptacle. The cookies, ointment, and tablets he sets on the ground next to him. While the tablet dissolves, he removes his vest and shirt and unties the vine from around his waist. Then he braces himself and peels away the makeshift bandage.
He needs to clean the wound in a bad way. Bellona's arrow has created a jagged slit in his side about between his shoulder and his hip, surrounded by an impressive network of colorful bruises. He's lucky Bellona had been in such bad shape when she shot him, or the arrow might have actually pierced his lung instead of glancing off his ribs. The bleeding has finally stopped, but his stomach is crusted with dried blood and dirt, a perfect breeding ground for infection. The puncture wound itself is swollen and emanates heat, which means it's already been contaminated by some sort of insidious microbe. What a disappointment he would be: Receiving a small fortune in sponsored gifts only to keel over of sepsis a couple of days later.
Though Finnick steels himself for a highly unpleasant experience, he is entirely unprepared for the degree of exquisite agony even the smallest splash of water elicits from the wound. Teeth gritted, eyes streaming, he forces himself with shaking hands to scrub the dried blood, dirt, and oil from his torso until nothing is left except the wound itself. He cleans from the inside out, from top to bottom, just how his first aid instructor taught him at the academy. By the time he runs out of clean water, he's moved far enough from the injury to use plain river water. The wound starts bleeding again thanks to Finnick's probing, so he quickly dabs on an ample amount of the new ointment and wraps the leaves he'd gathered around it. He uses the same vine from before to tie the leaves in place. After he's done, he has to take a moment to catch his breath.
Once he feels like he can move without passing out, he slakes his thirst. It takes all of his self control not to waste every pill in the bottle on this single occasion. The second the first sip of water touches his lips, a new, visceral impulse overtakes him and he begins to gulp the liquid down like he'll never drink it again. He finally regains his common sense after he empties the container for the second time, his stomach feeling full to the point of bursting. He's witnessed more than one tribute in past Games fall victim to water poisoning, a strange, deadly condition Finnick doesn't understand beyond its effects, which occur following ingestion of a large quantity of liquid. So he places his resources back into the receptacle in which they came and waits for his belly to settle. The longer he sits, the more the stuporous fog clouding his brain dissolves, leaving him lucid and ready to plan his next course of action.
How long has he been asleep? A day? Two days? Judging by how dry his mouth is and how dizzy merely standing rendered him, he'd been asleep for a good while—more than a few hours, certainly. Caspia did her best to take Bellona down; between the blow to her skull and the stab wound in her thigh, she should be too injured to come after him, at least until he's recovered himself. But Ruby and Alabaster have had at least a day to convalesce and decide on a new attack plan. In fact, if it weren't for the oil rain and the thick fog proceeding it, he might've already been made their latest victim. And he's not sure how the Callows have survived this long, but he'll have to keep an eye out for them as well. As weak as he is, it wouldn't take more than a rock and a strong will to do him in.
The longer he sits, the more aware he becomes of his own body—its stench, its matted hair, its distinctly neglected state no one would ever find appealing. Since the start of the Games, he's been coated in a layer of sweat, grime, or blood. Even his brief dunk in the river didn't wash away the feeling of not only dirtiness, but of being unclean. Of being…contaminated. He wants to crawl out of his own skin.
Once the water has had time to settle in his stomach, he feels strong enough to find a more protected spot on the river, so he gathers his belongings and sets out. Slinking through the rainforest just inside the tree line, Finnick feels more like prey than a proper Career tribute, like he's got a giant target painted on his back. Is this how Callows feel all the time? he wonders. Like helpless, hopeless fish in shark-infested barrel? His leg can barely hold his weight; there's no way it will withstand a sprint through the rainforest. He can only hope that wherever the other tributes have gone, they've decided to hole up somewhere far away from him.
The stretch of river he picks this time is lukewarm and muddy, but it's quiet enough he can hear approaching threats, too shallow for lizard sharks, and fairly protected by a copse of vine-draped, gnarled tees. Under the sweltering midmorning sun, Finnick scrubs the filth from his body, palms and fingertips scraping again and again until his skin stings and flushes red. It's not enough. He rips off his knife-slashed vest and shirt and rinses them thoroughly in the water, then does the same with his trousers. He cups handfuls of water in his hands and pours them over his head until his hair is soaked. Then he runs his fingers over and over through the matted waves. The prospect of donning soggy clothes is particularly repulsive, but he'd rather be damp and clothed than dry and naked.
It's not a proper bath, but it's better than nothing. Feeling more and more like a human, Finnick stands and begins to search for materials to construct his next project. It doesn't take him long: Vines hang everywhere, draped over tree boughs, creeping up trunks, tangled in undergrowth. Actually making a net from them, however, is another story entirely. Almost all of his nets at home are made from synthetic cord, which is thinner, more flexible, and considerably easier to manipulate. Oftentimes they come preassembled, woven together by inner-sector machines or by factory workers. This line of thought takes him once again to Caspia, which makes his chest hurt deep inside, where Bellona's knife could never reach. He tries to focus on the task at hand and force Caspia from his mind.
Munching on more of his cookies as he works, he pulls his starting vine taut between two tree trunks and beings looping and tying other pieces the best he can. His initial creation wouldn't catch a fish, let alone a person—the knots fall out as soon as he begins manipulating the net as he would actually use it. He starts again with thinner vines. This time he's met with better results, but the holes in the net are too large and the vines too weak—a tribute could easily break out of it using body strength alone. How did Caspia do it?
Huffing in frustration, he tosses the failed attempt aside and sets out to find more vines.
His third try yields the best outcome yet. It's a painstakingly slow process, making sure each knot is evenly spaced, using only the strongest, most pliant vines, but in the end his hard work pays off. He has a functional, renewable weapon capable of ensnaring his opponents. Lastly, he attaches a final length of vine to his net and tines the loose one to his wrist.
Casting the net is easy enough—he's handled them for as long as he can remember, since before he was even old enough to join his father on the boat. Still, he launches and swings it dozens of times before he's satisfied, growing used to the weight and maneuverability of it in his grasp. Holding his trident in one hand and his net in the other, he practices releasing the net on an invisible foe, then hauling it toward himself and stabbing at it with his weapon.
By midafternoon, his stomach is growling loudly enough for the whole arena to hear and he's so winded he's forced to dedicate all of his energy to simple respiration. He grabs his parachuted bounty and trudges along the riverbank until he discovers an appropriate location, wheezing and hacking like a chronic smoker all the while. The bank juts out over a bend in the river, creating a perfect place for watching the water. It's here he sits, sun beating down on his weather-beaten skin, and catches his breath.
The river has gone down considerably in the time Finnick was away from it. Standing over the river, trident and net at hand, should put Finnick at ease. All it does is make him homesick, yearning for the wind and waves of District 4. Do his parents miss him as much as he misses them?
His longing for home nearly eclipses his hunger, making it difficult for him to concentrate on the task at home. But fishing comes naturally to him, and it isn't long before a four fish are laid out on a rock beside him. He devours two of them, waits for his stomach to stop churning, then nibbles at the remaining two and prays heavily that the fish won't revisit in an unpleasant way later on.
He spends the rest of the afternoon making nets—he's going to make one as good as Caspia's if it's the last thing he does—and trying to ignore the intense itch of his wound, which he takes as a sign of healing. Hunting will have to wait until he's able to walk without supporting himself with his new spear. For now, he'll have to focus on hiding and regaining his strength.
The hardest part is finding a good hiding place for the night accessible to Finnick with his injury and concealed enough to make restful sleep an option. Because after all this, sleep is what he desperately needs. But until the Capitol medicine cures his leg enough to allow climbing, he will be stuck on the ground.
After a great deal of searching, venturing as far from the river as he dares, Finnick discovers a place he thinks might work: The gnarled tangle of roots of a fallen tree, meshed together by clods of dark earth, create a sort of cranny in which Finnick can hide. He drops to his belly, shoves his container in as far as it will go, and shimmies in after it. There's just enough room for him to turn over onto his back, staring up at the hair-like mass of roots and mud above him. This will make a passable hiding place as long as he doesn't try to sit up or breath too deeply, which aggravates his wound. Already exhaustion starts to creep up on him like the roots of the tree, twining around his body and pulling him down into the earth. But he fights it off, wriggling out from under the tree roots to afford himself a clear view of the sky.
The anthem begins to play, and Finnick's throat tightens with emotion in anticipation of seeing Caspia's portrait in the sky. Confusion crashes over him when the Capitol seal appears and anthem fades without showing her face. Surely there must be some kind of mistake, an error made by the Gamemaker in charge of nightly announcements. They always show the dead tributes in the sky. Then a realization thuds in his chest, sinking to the bottom of his gut like an anchor: They must've played the anthem while he'd been unconscious. He missed seeing Caspia in the sky. This feels like a catastrophic failure on his part, because there's no doubt in his mind that he owed Caspia, the girl who saved his life, this one act of respect and so much more. But he has failed her, just like he failed to save her from Bellona.
It had to happen eventually. The thought occurs to him then, blossoming in the back of his mind as he crawls back under the tree and rolls onto his side. Twelve divided districts, one victor.: This sole tenet is the sun around which the galaxy of the Hunger Games revolves. It had to happen eventually. The thought brings him no comfort as he plummets into slumber, the memory of Caspia tugging at his heart like she's snagged him with a fishhook.
His sleep is plagued by frequent nightmares, none of which make the least bit of sense but still wake him constantly, mouth dry and heart galloping furiously in his battered chest. Caspia visits his dreams often, trapped in a wreath of flames and always just out of his reach, face white with dread as the inferno consumes her. Sometimes it's Mags in the fire, other times it's his parents. The large, bright red ants chase him around the arena in a crimson swarm, crawling out of other tribute's mouths and noses and eyes, countless legs scuttling along skin and stingers digging into soft, vulnerable flesh. He jerks awake breathless every time, staring up into the darkness, paralyzed by terror until awareness filters back into his mind. Then fatigue overcomes him and he slips unwillingly back into oblivion, into the arms of whatever horror lies in wait for him in the dark.
When he tears himself out of a nightmare involving his father and a monstrous river mutt chomping off his arm, a polygon of daylight strains into his hiding place. Even crawling out from under the tree renders him out of breath, and he finds himself just as tired as he was the night before. Scrubbing at his eyes with his free hand, he opens his container of supplies and peels off his shirt, vest, and bandage. The wound doesn't look any redder or more purulent than it had the night before, so why does he still feel like he just ran a marathon across Panem? He dabs some more salve on the cut and replaces the leaves with a different kind, just in case the fuzz on the original leaves were aggravating it.
Even though he takes the shortest route, it takes him a good deal longer than normal to reach the river. He's starting to suspect either Bellona's arrow or one of his ribs punctured his lung, which will end poorly unless it somehow heals on its own. The water level keeps dropping as well, which Finnick takes as a sign of the Games' impending conclusion. How is he supposed to fight off Ruby and Alabaster like this? Even the act of filling his cookie box with water is almost too much for him to handle.
The faint sound of high-pitched laughter jolts him into high alert, shifting into a defensive position and holding his trident at the ready. As the laughter gets louder, Finnick can discern its location: The river—or rather, what swims within it.
A furry brown head pokes out of the water, dark, intelligent eyes regarding him before they dip below the surface. Then a half dozen similar heads join the first, intermittently popping up to look at Finnick, then diving back into the water. Otters. The term comes to him along with an image of the sleek brown creatures resting amidst a pile of boulders piled against the shore. He remembers seeing them once when he was very young, on a trip he and his father took further up the coastline in the trawler.
For a moment, Finnick is drawn to the otters, to their familiarity, the way they invariably remind him of home. Instead of their usual squeaks and squeals, laughter—oddly mirthless and yet distinctly human—issues from toothy mouths. As a single unit, the group of otters turn toward him, their laughter clearly heard as they twist and arc out of the water with more fluidity and ease than any human could hope to achieve. As Finnick stands there, rooted to the spot by curiosity or anxiety or both, the laughter morphs from strange to downright maniacal. Why does Finnick feel like he recognizes the voices?
Then it hits him all at once. Finnick's stomach drops to his feet as comprehension finally dawns on him in a nauseating rush. It's Caspia's laugh he's hearing, Caspia and Miles and Bellona and—
Finnick reels back from the river with a stunted cry, the world spinning around him and tipping beneath him. His heel catches a broken branch and he falls hard on his rear. This is enough to jar his stomach into outright rebellion, and he leans over and vomits yesterday's meal all over the bank. Then he scrambles to his feet and takes off into the rainforest. The rustling of foliage and the infernal laughter tell him the otters—mutts—aren't far behind.
He runs until his lungs are close to bursting, until spots dance in his vision and his legs stagger more than sprint. The laughter also fades away, but Finnick keeps glancing over his shoulder, expecting the creatures to be hot on his heels, mouths gaping and teeth bared. He can't get the sound out of his head; it stays there, playing in an endless loop in his ears. It's a testament to Gamemaker skill how much they managed to get the otters to sound so much like his fellow tributes, and yet remove all of the humanity from the sound. The otters' laughter would not have been out of place if they had been tearing him limb from limb.
Finnick's so preoccupied he doesn't notice the tribute racing toward him from the opposite direction. They crash into each other, and Finnick is so weak and unprepared he's knocked flat on his rear. There's no time for questions, no time for pleading or accusations or trickery. It's astonishingly quick and terrifyingly easy. Finnick springs to his feet, trident in hand, and plunges it effortlessly into the tribute's body.