04 - GREEN
The first thing she feels when she rises from the tube is the oppressive humidity. She's happy about that feeling, since humidity means there's water and it's not frozen solid. Last year was a blistering desert with almost nothing to drink, and there's been years where the arena is nothing but snow and ice. At least she won't bake or freeze to death, although there's still plenty of ways she could die. She pushes that out of her mind as the platform comes to an abrupt halt, the bright sun nearly blinding her after the darkness of the catacombs. Her head spins as the sticky air coats her skin and fills her lungs as she heaves in a gulping breath. When her eyes finally adjust to the light, she stifes a small gasp. Her head slowly turns as she soaks in the entire arena. Everywhere she looks, it's just green.
She's never seen so many plants in one place, not in books, not in her dreams. The golden Cornucopia sits before her in the middle of a large grassy field. The ground between the pedestals and the Horn is peppered with supplies like always, but there's also thousands of colorful flowers filling the clearing too. Beyond that, the jungle grows thick and wild. It looks like millions of trees, just an endless sea of dark green that stretches forever and ever. Indigo's heart is beating out of her chest, but she almost wants to smile; the jungle looks thick and dark and giant, with infinite places to hide. This is an arena for an Outlier to win in, and she knows if she gets some good supplies from the Bloodbath and escapes into the jungle, she might actually be able to survive deep into these Games.
Mercedes told her to go in right away, but Indigo guesses she tells that to every tribute no matter their skill level. Mercedes led an alliance that rivaled the Careers and murdered seven children with her bow and arrows; Indigo's all alone and when she tried to fire a bow at training, she couldn't even hit the target. Still, Indigo knows she's right, it's better to die a fast death than starve out in the jungle, and Indigo knows that such a lush arena is probably full of dangers. Nothing beautiful comes without a price in this world, Indigo learned that a long time ago, so she knows she must grab something, anything. Then she'll get her wits about her and figure out a strategy to survive.
The countdown is already almost at zero, and Indigo shakes herself, forcing herself to focus on the supplies in front of her. The boy from Seven is shaking slightly on her right, while the little girl from Nine on her left is already turned away from the Horn, ready to flee as fast as she can into the jungle. Neither of them is much of a threat, and Indigo's happy that there's no Careers right next to her; she'll have a better shot of getting supplies this way. She focuses on the things in front of her; the sharp swords and daggers too dangerous and far away to go to, a full water bottle about twenty paces away, a plastic case that might be a first aid kit a little closer. She settles on grabbing those two things; medicine and water will get her far in the arena, and she sees no food close enough to be worth it. As the countdown blinks towards 0, Indigo steels herself. This is it. Do or die. Either a Career will take her down nice and quick, or she'll get to explore the murky green jungle firsthand. She knows she should be scared of the rainforest, but she's more scared of dying among the tropical flowers in the clearing. She prepares to run and doesn't think too hard about what'll happen after that. She can't, or she'll be frozen in place and she'll die. She can do anything but die.
The gong rings, loud and booming in her ears, and she leaps forward into the fray. She dodges the boy from Seven who sprints deeper into the field for the better supplies as she stoops to snatch up the plastic kit. She then lunges for the water bottle as she starts to hear screams erupting from nearby. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one of the Careers stab the frail girl from Twelve as she tries to run away, and the sight of the blood pumping from the girl's chest is enough incentive for Indigo. Once the water bottle is in her hands, she twirls and springs forward, her legs churning up flowers and dirt as she sprints away from the Bloodbath.
She expects a throwing knife or an arrow or something else to sail at her, but no one comes for her. She's the skinny Six girl who scored a 5 and was unremarkable at her interviews, of course no one is going to target her. They're going to go for the strong kids, like the girl from Three and the boy from Twelve who got 9s, or the very weak ones, like her District partner, who will be easiest to take down in the opening melee. She's pleased her mediocrity has allowed her to survive, even if it's just the opening minutes. It was always the plan, the fly under the radar like this. She doesn't mind her pride getting hurt if it means she has a chance at survival.
She reaches the edge of the jungle within a minute, and she ducks between the mossy trunks as quickly as she can. Her pace is quickly slowed down as she has to weave carefully through the maze of towering trees that crowd together in all directions. There's undergrowth everywhere too, and vines criss cross between the trees and hang low to the ground. She hears insects buzzing from every branch and spots some colorful birds soaring in the canopy above her. As she watches the tropical birds flit from branch to branch, far out of reach of any of the creatures lurking on the forest floor, an idea of how to survive the night forms in her mind.
She keeps hiking through the jungle for a while, not seeing any other tributes or any new mutts besides a sloth hanging off of one of the bigger trees. As she walks, seven cannons fire in a row; a rather small Bloodbath, which is disappointing since it means these Games are going to stretch on longer than most years. It also means there's more tributes for the Careers to hunt down, however, and more time for her to evade them and come up with a plan to win the Games.
As the ringing of the cannons fades, she hears rushing water. She picks up her pace, stumbling out of the undergrowth and onto the muddy bank of a small brook. The water is shallow yet crystal clear as it rushes by, and instinctively Indigo knows it's probably clean. The Capitol won't want them to drop like flies from dehydration in such a hot and muggy arena. However, she still has her bottle from the Bloodbath, and she decides not to risk it yet. She's not going to take risks until she absolutely has to. Her life isn't worth gambling on, not now, not ever. She has to find a secure place to camp out and hope no one finds her on the first night.
Before she turns to leave, the slick mud on the banks of the little river reminds her of the camouflage station in the Capitol. She didn't spend much time there, but she remembers the instructor saying that if you were planning on hiding out the Games, some form of camouflage was essential. She doesn't think twice about it once the idea is in her mind; she scoops up handfuls of mud and plasters it across her arms and her legs and her face, and then puts it on her clothes too until she looks like she's been dipped in gunk. She then rolls around on the forest floor, letting fallen leaves and other debris cling to the wet mud. Once she stands, she feels grimy and hates the way the twigs and leaves dig into her skin, but she knows this is the way to survive. She has no weapon and she is not a hunter, so she must hide and give herself enough time to think of a way to make it out of here alive. She unscrews the cap of her water bottle and moves away from the small brook after she's done camouflaging herself, not wanting to sleep right by it as other tributes might be drawn directly to the water source. After taking a few sips, she puts the cap back on and starts hiking diagonally away from the brook.
She walks for hours, tripping over vines and winding around thick tree trunks. She hears a far off howl from some type of jungle cat and the shrieking of a flock of tropical birds being disturbed from their nest. She keeps moving for as long as she can, not letting the sounds around her intimidate her into stillness. As she hikes and hikes, darkness starts to descend on the arena, and she stops to rest for a bit. Her legs are burning from the opening sprint and her miles-long trek through the jungle, and she's hot and thirsty again already. She takes more sips from her bottle, draining it about halfway, before leaning against a tree and sighing deeply. Then, she sets down her water bottle and cracks open her plastic case to see what type of a first aid kit she's gotten, hoping to see a bottle of antiseptic and plenty of bandages.
The moment she opens the box, she draws in a shaky breath. She recoils at rows of gleaming needles and syringes in the box, sitting in a neat row alongside several glass vials with shiny metal caps. Indigo shakes her head slowly as she inspects them. Funny joke, put the needles and vials in front of the girl from the District that's been crippled by morphling for decades. Indigo feels her stomach turning as she remembers her mother laying in bed for a moment, remembers her sagging sallow skin and the glazed over look in her eyes. She feels tempted to throw the case in the mud and leave it behind, but she also knows it must have a use if the Gamemakers put it out there. They wouldn't put something by her unless they thought it could spice up the Games, especially with such a grand arena. It must have something to do with the arena that can help her, something that could help her survive. That, or it's just a cruel joke, the Gamemakers hoping the daughter of an addict would die with syringes in her hands. She hopes it's useful, and that these needles and vials will help her claw her way home to Six.
Her stomach rumbles with hunger as she walks slowly now through the jungle, but she's too tired and it's too dark to forage for food anyway. She eventually finds a tree that has lots of branches so it's easy to climb, and she hoists herself up onto the lower limbs before crawling up as high as she dares. Once she's about fifteen feet in the air, she finds a hollow between the branches that will support her while she sleeps, and she feels sufficiently concealed by the sheets of shiny green leaves surrounding her. She sighs and sits back as her stomach growls, hoping she'll be able to find something to eat by tomorrow in this endless sea of green.
As she's preparing to drift off to sleep, she hears the anthem begin playing and remembers that the dead will be in the sky. Curious to see if any of the Careers or other stronger kids died, Indigo crawls across the branches until she reaches a gap in the canopy where she can view the night sky up above. The seal of the Capitol falls away as it plays the face of the girl from Five, meaning that all of the Careers and the strong girl from Three made it out alive. That sours Indigo's stomach; there are at least seven kids left that are stronger than her. Indigo doesn't let it faze her too much, however, knowing that there's still plenty of Games left to play, and one Career dying would still mean there's plenty for her to fear. Thoughts of the Careers beating up dummies in the Training Center fill her mind, followed by Three talking in her interview about technological terms no one else understood. Indigo doesn't dwell on those thoughts, however. She won't waste time thinking about how they'll kill her if they find her, because they won't find her, she'll make sure of it.
The next face in the sky is her District partner, Hans, and Indigo sighs in disappointment to see him in the sky. She isn't surprised; he was almost starving to death before he was Reaped and only managed a 3 in training. He never paid attention to anything Greason tried to drill into his head in the Capitol and probably ran right into a Career's sword. Still, it stings to see the tiny boy from her home District in the sky, even if she knows he had to die for her to survive and she didn't know him before they were Reaped. He didn't deserve to die, not like this. None of them deserve to die like this, except the Careers who chose this life. Even then, they're just teenagers. She doesn't pity them, but no one deserves to die, not this young, no matter what you've done.
Other kids flash past; the shaking boy from Seven is among them, the one next to her in the countdown. They're all little and weak and dead, and she doesn't think much about them since none of them come as shocks to her. However, the last face in the sky makes her suck in a breath of surprise; it's the boy from Twelve. His name is Damon, she remembers that. He refused to speak to Caesar during the interviews, but he was a mass of muscle and got a Career score. Best kid out of Twelve ever, the tabloids were saying. Mercedes told her to avoid him at all costs, that powerful Outliers could be more dangerous than the best trained tributes when they were in the arena for a week. The Careers must've hounded him at the Horn and taken him down together. She doesn't know how a single person could destroy such a beast fueled by pure rage, and she's happy she won't have to find out firsthand.
When the faces are over, the sky falls dark and the only sound is the buzz of the insects among the humid, dark green leaves. Indigo crawls back to the fork between two large branches of the tree and curls up to sleep, clutching her water bottle to her chest for some semblance of comfort. As she's about to fall asleep, she hears a faint sound next to her ear that makes her sit up slowly and look down with curiosity and fear pumping through her veins in tandem.
Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbit.
Of course they'd put her in another jungle. She shakes as she rises on the platform and feels humidity slick on her skin, her mind flashing back thirty something years to her arena. She almost expects to see a grassy field full of colorful flowers again, but instead she's surrounded by water on all sides. The Cornucopia sits on a rocky island in the center, while dense, humid jungle surrounds the arena beyond the ring of water. Indigo knows what she has to do. Even though she can barely swim, she must paddle to the center of the arena, and she must die to sell this sham of a Games. They need cannon fodder to die in the Bloodbath, and she must fall. She sees Dirk a half dozen pedestals to her right, and he is focused on the Cornucopia. He sways back and forth a bit, but he doesn't fall, and she's happy about that. She doesn't know why she cares, she should be fine and accepting that they are both going to die no matter the method, but the beast claws its way to the surface and demands that she stays alive. You will not die, you cannot give yourself up, you cannot die, you've done too much, you can't die, you can't. She tries to quell the beast, but there's no morphling drips here, and its voice inside of her rises louder and louder, its claws tearing apart any protests of self sacrifice. You must survive. You must. There's nothing she can do to quiet the voice; the beast is there to protect her, and it won't let her do anything else but survive.
That's why, when the gong rings and she jumps into the water from her pedestal, she doesn't swim towards the Cornucopia like almost everyone else. Instead, she paddles madly for the beach, gasping for air as she uses her flotation device and her wildly pinwheeling arms to carry her forward. The world has been sludge for the past few years as she has fallen deeper into depression and upped her morphling dosage. Now, though, everything is sharp, alert, clear. She feels young again. The weight of her fifty years of life is lifted from her bones as she makes a mad paddle for the beach. She feels sixteen again, like she's sprinting through a clearing as the tropical flowers brush her ankles. The beast tells her she is sixteen again; she must move like she once did so she can escape and hide and survive.
There are screams and splashes and the sound of blades singing through the air, but Indigo ignores it all, floundering through the water until her frantic fingers scoop at sand. She drags herself onto the beach and doesn't even slow to stand, crawling as fast as she can across the sand and into the waiting embrace of the trees. She expects to be hit by memories of the children she killed among the vines and the fire burning the jungle and everything else to ash, but she sees no visions, feels no grief. The beast rages within her, still focused on survival. As she staggers through the rainforest, her aching, weak legs carrying her as fast as she can go, the beast seems pleased. It seems excited by the dense foliage and the humid air and the mud and leaves and twigs. The beast was born in a jungle, this place is where it thrives, and it will take care of her and make sure that no one ever finds her in this endless sea of trees. It worked last time, and it will work again. The beast reassures her of this over and over as she stumbles through the rainforest before her legs grow too exhausted and she collapses on the ground, heaving in gulps of air greedily.
Once she catches her breath, she notices the ground beneath her is slick and grimy. Her mind doesn't even process what she's doing as she layers mud on her skin. Unlike the haphazard application of her first Games, Indigo applies the mud and leaves and twigs artfully. She finds different patches of mud in different shades and textures to imitate the look of vines and branches across her skin. She's been painting for three decades now, and she doesn't even have to think as she spends hours creating the perfect illusion and imitating her surroundings. She slinks into a hollow in the trunk of a tree covered by vines, her camouflaged body blending in perfectly. As she leans back in her hiding spot, eight cannons ring through the air. She doesn't jump; the beast was expecting this, and it is pleased to hear that a third of the competition has been taken out, more than in their first Games. After checking her camouflage is spotless, the beast finally settles, content with its work, and Indigo suddenly lets it all hit her.
She's alive now, and she didn't die like she was supposed to. She was supposed to give her life for Katniss and Peeta and the rebellion and all of Panem, but instead she ran. She ran and screamed and hid like a coward. She knows she's been soft and fragile ever since she came out alive from the 41st Games, but she didn't realize she was this flimsy, this weak-willed. Now she is alive, and she is going to have to die, but it's not going to be simple and fast and relatively painless like it could've been. The Bloodbath will be smaller, President Snow might become more suspicious, and the rebel network she's helped cultivate will be confused and mad at her. She wonders where the alliance is right now, hoping Katniss is alive and has a bow, hoping Peeta is with her too, hoping Beetee got whatever he needed while she and Dirk and the others were supposed to create a distraction for him. She knows she doesn't deserve to think of them at all, she's a traitor, she's a coward, and she's so unwilling to give up on life even though she has been a walking corpse for thirty years. She wants to cry but the beast doesn't let her; she can't ruin her camouflage, after all.
The tears come anyway when the anthem plays several hours later, even as the beast purrs in annoyance within her chest. She doesn't want to leave her hiding spot; who knows what is crawling around at night in an arena full of Victors. She didn't follow the plan, so she knows Plutarch will not spare her and protect her like Katniss and the others. She will be one of the ones like the Victors who refused or weren't asked, the ones that will be destroyed by mutts or arena events to make the Games more believable. Still, she makes herself move. If they send mutts or fire or whatever else at her, they won't do it during the anthem, and her old friends deserve her respect even if they wouldn't respect her now, after all she's done. She crawls to a clearing and the tears are pouring down her face before the first face fills the sky.
Surge is up there, the sniveling boy from Five who won the year after her. He's the same age as her, and yet he still looks boyish and absolutely devastated. He and Indigo were described as two of the most surprising Victors ever by Caesar, which was code-word for forgotten, weak, and having no chance at winning this Games of champions. She isn't surprised to see Surge gleaming in the sky. He was too sweet for the Games and won on pure luck, and he wouldn't join the rebellion in order to protect his husband and children. Still, she's crying for him because he was one of the kids who had no chance like her, one of the ones who got lucky and made it out alive, and he actually made a family and some sort of a recovery. He made something of himself, and she hasn't, she's just wasted her life on drugs and crude paintings. She should be up there instead, not him.
She isn't ready for the next face, she knows she isn't, but she still wails long and loud into the night when Dirk goes into the sky. He looks angry and sullen in his portrait, which they took at the Justice Building before he could take another hit. He was always more broken than her and needed more drugs and more care and more love, but she always gave it. She sobs and screams and kicks the ground because Dirk was...Dirk was her son, in a way. He was born the year she won the Games, he was young enough to be her own, and he was the only person that she ever took care of in her life. Everyone else took care of her and was stronger than her, but he wasn't, he needed her, and she had never felt that before. He loved her unconditionally, he was her best friend, he made her feel like she was okay and alive when she was drowning in her nightmares, and she did the same for him. He gave up his life for the rebellion today, and he died without her at his side. He was brave, and she wasn't. She wishes she could burn the entire world to the ground just to fingerpaint with him one last time. She wants Greason's arms around her and Mercedes' sad little smile, but they're millions of miles away and the only thing that can hear her weeping now is the glistening green leaves of the rainforest. The trees mock her in their resolute silence. Even the bugs stop chirping so all she can hear are her wretched sobs.
The others fill the sky as she weeps for Dirk, and she cries for them too. Cecelia, so loyal and so vicious, fighting so that her young children wouldn't go into the Games when they were old enough to. Woof, who started the rebellion before she was even born and still held his hatred for the Capitol even when dementia had sunken its claws into his brain. Brandy and Enzo, who could have won these Games but chose to fall in the Bloodbath in order to protect Nine if the rebel plan failed. Annley, who was even more broken than Dirk, so scarred from her Games that she barely ate and would be useless in the rebel plans. Seeder, oh sweet Seeder, who was a mother to everyone and never hesitated to give a helping hand in the Control Center even if your tribute had just murdered hers. She was forgiving and kind and loving and doting and most of all dead, just like all the others. She feels faintly happy to see that Katniss and Peeta and the others all made it out alive, but more so she just feels broken and sad. She should be up there, glittering in the sky as a hero like the rest, but instead she's a sniveling coward moaning for mercy among the undergrowth. She should scream until someone finds her, let them kill her and ease her suffering. She should die, she needs to. It's her purpose. Yet she knows she won't. She is too much of a monster to give up her life that easily. She had illusions she could be a brave sacrificial lamb, but now she knows better. She is nothing more than a sniveling coward, and she deserves a fate worse than death for her betrayal.
She reapplies her camouflage once the anthem fades, fixing the places where her tears have smudged and streaked her disguise. Then she crawls back into the hollow of the tree, letting the mottled green vines fall over her as she shakes in utter fear. She's a coward, she's always been one, and there's nothing she can do now but try to keep herself alive. The beast won't let her give up and the young woman inside of her wants to go home, so she realizes she must continue fighting. There is no other option for her now. She closes her eyes and prays for forgiveness from her friends and all of Panem as she does the one thing she shouldn't do.
She survives.
A/N: This was a really long one! I just wanted to give a good taste of both of her first days in her arenas, and I hope you guys enjoyed this one. It was really fun to write about her Games, and I promise later chapters will highlight what happened in the rest of both of her Games as well as the other parts of her life. Let me know what you thought about this one and I hope you guys are doing great! Thanks for all the support so far it means the world to me!
Until Next Time,
Tracee