The tribute—a boy, Finnick isn't sure what district he represents—gasps, hands flying to the tines embedded in his chest. More out of surprise than deliberate movement, Finnick yanks the trident back, and the boy crumples to the ground, wheezing and gurgling his own blood. Finnick stares down at him, panting and coughing himself, until the boy stills and the cannon booms.
Only now does realization hit Finnick, breathtaking and nauseating all at once: He killed a tribute. This tribute is dead because of him.
It had to happen eventually.
What is he doing? Common sense strikes him in the head, transparent and utterly scornful. He left all of his belongings except the trident on the riverbank—what will the sponsors think of him now? Abandoning their expensive gifts to run away from some laughing river rats? He might as well have chucked their gifts in the river.
Unfortunately, his chest pain has grown so severe he is incapable of thinking of anything else. When he turns back toward the river, the ground tilts beneath him and somehow he ends up flat on his back, staring up at the rainforest canopy, dread and pain shooting through him like projectiles. This is it. He's going to die right next to the tribute he killed.
Something silver and nebulous manifests above him, emitting a continual beeping noise Finnick wishes would just stop already so he could get on with dying in peace. The beeping only gets louder, and something about it galvanizes Finnick into prying open his eyes, which are rapidly failing at this point but still functional enough for him to realize the cloud-thing is getting closer. A parachute.
Every breath is not a breath at all—it's a mandatory exercise in torture, another Gamemaker ploy meant to end with Finnick's slow and painful demise. But he inhales because he must, because some intrinsic force in him compels him to, even when darkness frames his vision and a hot poker transfixes his lung and stirs its contents like noodles.
Somehow he manages to get the parachute container open. Inside there's are two plastic packages. Stored within one package is a single silver needle about three inches long. The needle is topped with a bright yellow flutter valve, which Finnick has only ever seen at the academy.
Finnick eases himself back down on the ground, even though lying flat makes respiration impossible. With quivering hands, he pulls the needle from the package and gazes at it, sterile and gleaming in the sunlight. The surface is marked for how far down the Gamemakers have calculated he'll need to insert it. He pulls down the collar of his shirt, palpates his ribs, counts down one, two—
Before he can convince himself otherwise, he stabs the needle straight down into his chest, right above his second rib, just like his first aid instructor showed him.
Finnick is pretty sure he blacks out for a moment—his vision goes entirely white, and all he can hear is a high-pitched ringing in his ears. When he regains consciousness, a slight hissing noise overtakes the ringing. He inhales tentatively, delighted to find the task significantly easier than it had been mere seconds before.
It must've worked, he thinks, giddy with relief. Mags has saved me again. He lies there, taking progressively deeper breaths until the air stops leaking from the needle and he no longer feels like he's teetering on the brink of death. Rather, he's edging carefully away from it, using his needle as his primary defense.
He doesn't know how long he lies there—a couple of hours maybe? He won't know until he gets a good view of the sun. Though he would like nothing more than to stay on the ground and sleep for the rest of time, he knows he has to finish the procedure. So he grips the needle and pulls it out in one fluid motion. He can't stop the yelp of pain the action elicits, but even this pain is preferable to the constant, stabbing discomfort of the collapsed lung. He rips open the second package from the parachute—a small, square bandage with tape attached to three sides—slaps it over the puncture wound, and smooths it out to make sure the adhesive sticks to his sweaty skin. He takes a moment to catch his breath, counting to one hundred three or four times before he musters his willpower and convinces himself to sit up.
The dead tribute stares at him, unseeing, as Finnick gradually achieves an upright position, expression frozen perpetually in a state of distress. Finnick looks away when his stomach starts to churn again, though he doubts there's anything left for him to throw up.
One step at a time, Finnick, he tells himself grimly. It's only after the words have left his mouth that he realizes he spoke them aloud. First, he sits. Then he plants one foot beneath him. Then the other. Trident in one hand, sponsored parachute in the other, he levers himself to his feet. He pauses to acclimate himself to the change in altitude, fighting off gust after gust of lightheadedness trying to push him over.
Unsteady as a baby first learning to walk, Finnick makes his way back to the river, hoping against all hope that no one took his belongings while he was off being foolish. Although, he isn't sure if he would've received the needle if he hadn't run into the other tribute and killed him. It wasn't even a good battle—all Finnick did was stick him with his trident.
Maybe it isn't about a good fight at this point, Finnick thinks. Maybe it's about manipulating the odds. In any case, it seems Mags is doing everything in her power to tip the odds in his favor.
By the time the river comes into his line of sight, Finnick is ready to collapse again. But anxiety regarding his belongings' whereabouts drives him into the patch of reeds where he hid them—and sure enough, there they sit, everything from the box of cookies to his meticulously crafted net. He can't stop a sob of relief from escaping his lips, even though he claps a hand over his mouth to muffle it. Then he gathers the items in his arms and cradles them like newborn kittens, rocking back and forth on his heels.
Careers don't cry. It's an unspoken rule of Careerdom, one Finnick has so far been able to obey. Not only does it make you the target of every other Career in the pack, it also makes you the object of scorn and censure in the Capitol, where ardent brutality is upheld as the paradigm of tribute behavior. Finnick's tears will not be the reason District 4 is made a mockery. So he lifts his head for the camera to get a clear shot of his face and flashes a triumphant smile he doesn't feel at all.
He's too exposed here. Thanks to all of the academy's efforts, his training never leaves him, not completely. Finnick glances around, scanning for signs of movement. Even though he sees nothing, he knows he can't stay where he's at. He hefts his supplies, using the parachute as a sort of bag and its cords as a drawstring, and sets off into the jungle to search for a safe place to sleep.
It's tempting to return to the same uprooted tree from last night, but Finnick knows better. Instead, he hunts for a tree. With his lung reinflated and his arrow wound on the mend, he feels ready to attempt climbing a simple one. Eventually, he finds a squat, feathery specimen with thick boughs sturdy enough for any tribute to climb.
Scaling the tree is more difficult than he'd anticipated. Carrying his trident, net and the parachute full of goodies, it takes him until dusk to figure out how to get up the tree. He takes a strong woody vine, slings it over the tree branch, and attaches his parachute bag to it. Then he attaches another vine to his trident—tying it up near the prongs and down toward the other end—and slings it over his back the way Peacekeepers transport their guns when not in use. At last, both hands are free. He clambers up to his chosen branch and throws his leg over. Then up comes his supplies, pulled up with the vine he draped over the branch before he ascended. His net draped over the branch above him and his parachute tied to it, Finnick props the trident against the trunk and settles back next to it, wiggling and twisting to get comfortable. Then he waits for the anthem to play.
Promptly at nightfall, the portrait of the boy who Finnick killed manifests above him, his accusing eyes glaring down at Finnick with such ferocity Finnick has to convince himself not to look away. It's the boy from 11. Despite his efforts to do otherwise, Finnick does not remember a thing about him. And despite his fatigue, Finnick is awake for a long while after the Capitol seal disappears, thinking about the boy from District 11 and the look on his face when Finnick plunged his trident into his chest.
The laughing otters are added to the cast of his nightmares tonight, along with the boy from District 11. They chase Finnick down the river, cackling all the while, until Finnick tumbles from the river into a pitch-black pit and doesn't stop falling until he wakes up.
When he wakes up, his chest still throbs, but not nearly with the intensity it had the day before. Finnick practices inhaling and exhaling a few times under the vague, uneducated impression that perhaps his lung is shriveled and requires exercise like atrophied muscle. All this does is trigger a coughing spell, which does nothing but aggravate his ribs and leave him feeling drained and sore. He dabs more ointment on the arrow wound, and some on the needle wound as well.
After a meager breakfast of the three fish-shaped cookies, he lowers his supplies down from the tree then descends after them, carefully stepping down to the ground rather than jumping as he had before. Even as a high and mighty Career, the acquisition of food shuffles to the top of his priority list. He foolishly relinquished almost all of his hard-earned supplies to either the tributes from One or the river, though he supposes he'd probably be dead right now if he hadn't.
First, he follows Mags's advice and sorts and catalogues his bounty. A good day always starts out organized and well-planned. Even if it all falls apart later, at least you have something to fall back on. Six cookies nestled in the little tin, the new pot of ointment, the now-empty container parachuted yesterday, and his precious water-purifying tablets. He dumps them into his hand to count. Five left. Judging by the label, each one purifies about a liter of fluid. If he drinks two containers full of liquid per day, he has enough tablets left for about three days. Of the half dozen knives he left the Cornucopia with after Miles's death, only two remain. And of course, he has his net and trident.
Though it's tempting to hunt down Ruby and Alabaster in the hope of catching them by surprise, Finnick knows better. He's too hungry and still too weak from his arrow wound. Instead, he accrues an easy source of energy by harvesting the rock-like nuts off the ground, cracking open the shells with real stones, and dropping their edible insides into his parachute bag. He eats from his store as he roves the forest, head constantly tilted up in search of the trees bearing the food he wants. After he fills his bag, he decides to rest for a bit and figure out his next course of action. He finds a flat rock and sits down on it, the cord of his parachute bag looped securely around his wrist. While he's totally unoccupied by running or fighting or scavenging, he has time to admire his greatest gift, his saving grace against Bellona and possibly the avenue to his victory in the Games.
Wrought from metal so opulent it might have been dipped in sunlight, the trident is so perfect, so purposefully crafted for killing, Finnick almost hesitates to twirl it as he so desperately wants to. But he does, because this trident has so clearly been fashioned for him, from its length to its weight to its very shape. Austere and unyielding, the trident acts as a sort of beacon, a source of energy and potential.
He's spent the last two days so fixated on survival he's not quite sure he wants to do with his free time. The Gamemakers are permitting him respite for a reason: They expect him to formulate his own plan, to hunt down the others and put his trident to good use. While the notion had been unpleasant before, it's particularly despicable now. Not the actual act of killing—Finnick knows he's more than capable of doing it. But the fact that they expect it...savor it even. He's no better than Bellona.
This isn't a battlefield, he thinks bitterly. This is a slaughterhouse, a killing floor.
Rising to his feet, Finnick takes a couple of practice swings with his weapon, relishing the familiarity of it in his grasp. The trident is perfectly balanced, a as intuitive to use as a fork or a fishing rod.
Mags's message is clear and cautiously optimistic: The people of the Capitol and the people of District 4, despite Caspia, despite everything he has done and failed to do, still stand with him. With this weapon in his hands, he could very well turn the tide of the Games. Two Callows, two Careers. One victor.
With each swipe of his trident, he imagines its prongs driving into Ruby's throat, imagines her eyes widening with terrified bewilderment. Imagines her falling to the ground, her lifeblood pouring out. The cannon booms. His imagination expands to the others, to Alabaster and the remaining Callow, who tremble and flee his wrath. No one is safe from him and his trident. Which Callow is left? The girl from 10, if his memory serves him correctly. He doesn't think he's seen her the whole Games. And now he's going to hunt her down and kill her.
Linden, the redhaired girl from Seven, manifests in Finnick's mind, her lovely brown eyes gazing up at nothing, a blade jutting out of her chest. Though he isn't the tribute who threw the knife, he is just as responsible for her death.
Don't tell me who deserves what. Not here, not with me.
In the end, someone has to die. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, Caspia's siblings do not deserve to suffer because of Finnick's idleness or moral quandaries. Finnick's parents don't deserve a lifetime of grief because he'd rather spite the Capitol than fight to return home to them.
If he's not going to win for his district, he should at least try to win for his loved ones.
Judging by the position of the sun, it's about midafternoon. Finnick must have slept late into the morning. He can't remember the last time he truly slept in—at the academy, every student wakes at 6 o'clock sharp. On the weekends he wakes even earlier to take the boat out with his father. In any case, it's time for lunch.
Finnick is feeling brave enough to wade into the river today. He starts out cautious at first, memories of the river mutts still fresh in his memory, but the water has become so shallow Finnick is less worried about mutts and more worried about what will happen when the riverbed runs completely dry.
Using both the net and the trident, it only takes him a half-hour to catch two magnificent catfish. He devours them raw on the riverbank, periodically spitting out bones when they get caught in his teeth and throat. Watching the rushes sprouting along the riverside reminds him of the basket he weaved with Caspia in the little waterfall grotto. Fruit certainly won't store long off the vine, but he's not comfortable with gathering enough to eat day by day. So he gathers a pile of reeds, sticks them in his net, and anchors both to the river bottom with a couple of rocks.
While the reeds soak, Finnick begins the painstaking process of climbing trees and pulling bananas, figs, and mangoes. It's time consuming and somewhat painful, but he forces himself to gather enough for the next day or two. It's only a matter of time before Ruby and Alabaster track him down, and he needs to be strong and ready for the eventuality.
He weaves a couple of decent baskets to hold his bounty of produce, setting them out to dry in the sun before he piles the fruit in them. His newly fashioned containers are bulky and definitely won't travel well if he wants to hunt tributes, but if he hides them someplace cool and shady, the fruit should last a day or two.
By now, the sun is starting to set. Balancing the fruit baskets in his arms, he uses the hours of remaining daylight to trek back to the waterfall where Caspia had brought him a few days back. It's slow going because he tries to cover his tracks as he goes, but soon it'll be too dark for anyone to follow him anyway. By the time he makes it to the grotto, the sky has turned a coral pink at the edges, too beautiful to belong in an arena like this. The waterfall's massive outpour has tapered off to a mere trickle, making barely more than a splash in the sluggish river below. The Gamemakers are bringing the event to a close soon. The notion both excites and worries Finnick concurrently.
What scheme will they use to drive them together? Mutts? Another natural disaster? Regardless of the form this device takes, it will most likely be deadly. At least Finnick has his trident and net. He's still angry he had to leave One the Callow gifts and most of his supplies; if he'd known they'd been waiting to ambush him he would have left the gifts to be burned up by the inferno.
The narrow path leading up to Caspia's grotto isn't so slippery thanks to the lack of water pouring over it. Finnick is able to make it up to the cave without much difficulty. He crawls into the space and nibbles on a few figs while he waits for night to fall and the anthem to play.
Once darkness has cloaked the sky, the anthem plays and the Capitol seal appears and vanishes without a tribute's face accompanying them. Once everything goes dark, loneliness begins to gnaw at Finnick, hollow like hunger and heavy like grief. Finnick lies on the cold, hard stone of the cave and tries to force himself to sleep, but sleep is hard when nothing but terror and torment await you on the other side. There is no basket weaving or fishing to distract him now, no activity to keep his mind away from the darkness constantly occupying it.
The sun is setting.
When Finnick closes his eyes, he constructs a scenario around him, a fantasy concocted to soothe his anxiety and bring a restful slumber. His head in Mags's lap, her hands in his hair.
The sun is setting and it's golden, the fiery light shimmering off the ocean its sinking behind. A breeze drifts across your skin. Ocean waves wash languidly against the shore. You're sitting on the beach, sand still warm, and you're at peace. You have no burden on your shoulders, no anxieties plaguing your every waking moment. It's just you, the light, and the sea.
Finnick, the light, and the sea. This is what he thinks of as the tide washes him from the shores of lucidity into blessed unconsciousness.
