Author's Note
I do not own The Hunger Games.
They were awoken in the morning by the patter of rain. Nathaniel peered out the cave at it, fingering his glow stone. Luciente looked back towards the beach. The evil was moving back towards them, slow, but steady, and unmistakeably their direction.
He scooped up his backpack. "We should move."
"Are we going after Cairne?" Ilenia asked slightly too eagerly.
"No," Luciente replied. "He's near the evil."
Near it? Or- It was all around him, twisted, cold, creeping.
Ilenia frowned. "There's only seven of us left. It's either him or the girl from Six, and I thought we were all buddy-buddy with her."
"Apparently we can't kill her," muttered Bunny. "An alliance of five at this point in the Games is crazy. We need to separate."
Luciente flashed her teeth. "I told you, you're part of our pack now."
"Luciente…"
They looked about at each other. How long had they known each other? A week, two? It felt like forever. Bunny sighed. ""It'll be a super boring Games."
Ilenia laughed. "I'm down with ruining their fun."
Bunny got to her feet. "So we're doing this?"
Nathaniel grinned. "Let's do this!"
As they walked the rain grew heavier. Within five minutes their jackets were sodden, water running down their faces.
Within ten they were wet to the skin.
He shuddered, adjusting his jacket around his shoulders. Ilenia grinned at the sky. "I've changed my mind about sticking with you guys. This is pissing them off big time."
Nathaniel laughed. "What are they gonna do, kill us?"
A screaming wind whipped around them, wrenching at their hair, pulling at their clothes. How many storms had they known? And yet this one was unnatural. It was all wrong, too concentrated, too perfect.
She fingered the warm stone in her pocket. She could feel it, the hum of the rain, the warm buzz of the girl from Six ahead, the boy from Two behind them but slowly catching up, and the hum of the forcefield all around them.
The rain continued to fall.
There was a flicker of blue to their left, and the boy from Four reappeared. The girl from Two was a short distance behind him.
And she looked terrible.
Luciente had seen three types of ghosts. There were the ones that looked like they did in death, like the boy from Four, the ones that looked like they had in life, like the little drowned boy from the stream back in Ten, and the ones that looked like they had once in life, like the lady in pink from the Treddle's farmhouse.
She had never known a ghost change its appearance.
But whereas the girl from Two before had looked like she had in death, coated in blood and dirt, a gaping wound in her neck, there were now what almost looked like burn marks wrapped around her stomach and up to her torso, chunks missing from her torso, and her left arm was gone. Not broken, or hidden by the angle, but gone gone, with only a stump at the shoulder remaining.
She no longer felt angry, either, but sad and scared and uncertain.
Luciente took a step towards her. "What happened to you?"
"Luciente? What is it?"
"She's… harmed."
The dead can't hurt us.
But, apparently, there was something out there that could hurt the dead.
The girl flickered hot and cold, anger and pain and confusion. She raised her remaining hand and pointed, back the way they had come. The boy from Four raised his own arm and pointed in that same direction, back towards the cold and darkness and evil.
"Did that thing do this to you?"
The girl looked at her with those cold, accusing eyes. The boy reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. There were burn marks up his arm, thick and black.
"You can come too."
Small puddles began to form and grow around their feet, water splashing over their boots as they trod in them. Stones and rivers of dirt ran down the cliffside.
"Maybe we should keep to the trees!" Bunny shouted. "That thing doesn't look very stable!"
Ilenia peered into the trees. They were pressed so close together now that while Nathaniel and Bunny might have been able to squeeze through, she, Hyperion and Luciente simply wouldn't fit.
"I don't think that's an option any more Nine."
There was a dreadful rumbling as a large section of mud and dirt came loose from the cliff, flooding to the ground. Up ahead they could hear screams and cries from Arielle.
Ilenia shifted her spear in her hand. "Something's happening."
There was another rumble, ground shaking, and another section of the cliff began to slide towards the ground.
"Move!"
They ran, not fast enough – not enough, not enough, she was never enough – and more and more dirt and filth was coming free, flowing down the cliffside like water, crashing down around them, flowing between them, and she screamed as Heaven and the girl from Two appeared in front of her and rocks crashed down behind them, and he yelled as Bunny threw herself at him, knocking him out the way, throwing them both to the ground, and they both looked at the watery mass of rocks and dirt and filth between them.
"Luciente!"
"Here! I'm here!"
More rocks and dirt began to come free on his side, and Nathaniel darted forwards to grab at his arm.
"We need to move!"
"I'm not leaving her!"
"She'll catch us up! Come on!"
"Luciente!"
On the other side, Ilenia was half buried in the dirt, struggling to work her legs free, kicking and swearing at the dirt.
"Are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna help me witch girl?"
Luciente drifted over and held her hand out. Ilenia took it, and Luciente half dragged her from the mud, kicking the rest of the rocks aside.
"What's the worse they can do," Ilenia muttered in a mockery of Nathaniel's voice. "Kill us?"
Luciente turned, gazing back the way they had come. "Leave us to the darkness."
