I came ashore three land masses away from where I woke up, and whatever those creatures were they disappeared as quickly as the came. I'm not exactly sure what kind of mutts they were, but I have a bad feeling that I haven't seen the last of them.
Two hours later out in the plains, I was running along when I heard a dinging. I turned and looked into the sky, and I see two silver parachutes attached to a box the length as my spear. I removed the top and I almost shed a tear as I pull out a trident. I stare at the weapon for a moment, and then I look up into the sky as I said. "You have my thanks Swe—Mags."
I hear a couple of tributes coming my way, and I decided to stand my ground. I put the trident in the holster I have on my back as I decide to use my spear one last time. The moment the I see the first tribute, the male from 8, I let my spear loose and it gets lodge in his chest. The next tribute was the girl from 8 as well. She gasped at the horror of see her companion's death, and then came at me in a rage. I pull the trident off of my back and parry every attack she throws at me. I use the shaft of my trident to sweep her off her feet, and then stabbed her in the chest. I grab a towel to wipe the blood off trident and keep moving.
On the boundary of the plains and the forest, Indigo and Orna were debating if they should enter to find and try to find me.
"What do you think we should do?" Indigo asked.
"If I had to guess that was some new mutt that the Capitol created for the Games. Ill-equipped as we are, we would just get in the way. We can go look for him at nightfall." Orna said.
"That screamed seemed…unnatural—"
"Quiet!" Orna hissed, as she covered Indigo's mouth with her hand.
The girls fell silent and listened for the sound that put Orna on edge. Orna was looking into the forest, while Indigo was looking out over plains. A few seconds later, Orna removed her hand and then pointed into the trees.
After the girls climbed into the trees, five tributes come running through the brush and following them were a couple of mutts. The mutts had gotten close to the tributes a few times, but the mutts didn't try to harm or kill tributes.
"What's their play?" Orna asked.
"What do you mean?" Indigo asked.
"The mutts show up, but they aren't killing people. The deaths are only coming from the tributes, and nothing else. Are the mutts meant to drive us into other tributes?" Orna asked.
At that time a cannon explodes, and they see a hovercraft come down and take a body. There wasn't much the girls could do, but beneath them heard talking and judging by the callousness of the speakers it's the Careers.
"These mutts are becoming a severe pain." Zetta said.
"Yeah. They keep driving the tributes into the plains. It gives Finnick all of the kills and leaving nothing for us." Orion said.
"We can go after Finnick if you like." Coral said.
"We don't have to kill him, but we should probably hangout—"
Weiss was going to say that they should stay near the plains area, but a mutt randomly appeared out of nowhere, and stabbed him in the chest with it claws. The rest of the Careers pounced on the mutt killing it, but it was for naught because two more mutts appeared and droved the group off. One of the mutts stopped long enough to look up into the trees, but it lost interest and renewed chasing the Careers. Orna and Indigo had left the area already.
It was nightfall, and I was eating my dinner while I was waiting for the daily death count to be aired in the sky. There was only one death today, and to my great surprise the boy from 2 had perished. Three have passed days since I got my trident. As the anthem finished playing, I sensed I had company.
"What do you need?" I asked.
"You're going to want to see this." male voice said.
I turned to see that it was the boy from 7.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"The girl from 5." he said.
I turned to see Orna and Indigo approaching, they were being followed by the girl from 7, and Indigo was in terrible shape.
"How are you still alive?" I asked, getting up and walking over to Orna and Indigo.
"We were ambushed." Indigo choked out, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
"The Careers were following us. We confronted them, but some of those mutts joined the fray. Before leaving, Fennel wounded Indigo before they escaped." Orna said.
"Set her down. Hey." I said, talking to the boy from 7. Orna laid Indigo on the ground.
"I'm Fjord, and she's Helbora." Fjord said.
"Grab my bag. It's next to the tree I was leaning against and bring it to me." I said to Fjord.
Helbora pulled Orna away from Indigo giving me space to work as Fjord handed me my pack. Orna finally got a good look at my shoulder, and her eyebrows almost jumped off of her forehead. The wound had healed, and there was no scar. I worked as fast as I could, but I have a feeling that the wound that Fennel dealt is going to claim Indigo's life. I look at Orna, and I can see that Indigo had grown on her because Orna was not even bothering to hide the anguish in her eyes or stopping the tears from streaming down her face.
I search my bag and find the bottle of pills that would help lessen the pain. I open the bottle and pull out two pills. I hand Indigo the pills and a bottle of water.
"Take these and wash them down with the water." I said, handing Indigo the pills and the water.
"What are you doing?" Orna asked.
"Orna." Helbora said.
After Indigo takes both the pills and the water, I stand up and pull Orna away from Indigo. I walk away a good distance.
"You know Indigo isn't going to survive this. You must know this." I said
"I know that, but we have to do more." Orna said, as she shook my hand off.
"Orna! There's nothing I could do. The pills I gave her were enough to numb the pain. If you have any last words, now's the time to say so." I said.
I nod for Helbora and Fjord to give Indigo and Orna a moment, and we step away from the pair and allow them their final moments. I close everything out and listen for an incoming ambush, but when I turn around, I see that both Helbora and Fjord are gone. Either one of them could come for us, a fact that doesn't surprises me, but why try to attack us now? A myriad of question that don't have an answer. I don't even feel myself getting sleepy. I sit down next to a tree and then I drift off.
BOOM!
In the morning, I'm woken up by the sound of cannon fire. I turn to see that Orna had moved Indigo into a clearing. I look to the sky and see the hovercraft appeared to retrieve Indigo's body. I looked over at the tree and saw the trident I was given the day the mutts started appearing the arena. I did the math in my head: District 1 has both of its tributes, only Zetta remains from District 2, Orna is the sole survivor of District 3. Coral and I both are still in the Game, and Helbora and Fjord from District 7. The only tribute to be killed by the mutts was the boy from 2, but I've had to kill at least five or six tributes with my trident. I've been on the run from both tributes and mutts that the passage of time has become blur.
"It's been about seven days since we entered the arena." Orna said, reading my mind.
"So, it has." I said.
"What should we do now?" she asked.
At that moment, four more cannons fire off and we turn to see the hovercrafts come to collect the bodies.
"Before we do anything we should at least wait and see who died." I said.
"How about we head to back to the Cornucopia. I know a place where we could spy on the Careers, or what's left of them, and not be seen." she said.
"We'll go, as long as you keep your head on straight." I said.
Orna turned back to me, giving me a look of death, but became introspective. "Okay." Orna said, and then the two if us headed to the spot.
As we draw closer to the Cornucopia, we can hear shouting. One is a female voice, and they are extremely irritated, while the other voice, a male, is trying to calm the female down.
"How delightful." Orna said.
As we draw closer, we can make out their conversation, but it's nothing of interest to help us take them down. The spot that Orna was talking about gave us a view of the Cornucopia but concealed us from Coral and the boy from 1. The boy from 1 is in pretty bad shape, not much of a competition, while Coral is in perfect health.
"Isn't strange that all of the Careers are dead, or dying, and Coral doesn't have as much as scratch on her." she said
"Don't take her lightly. It could have been her plan all alone to whittle the Career pack to just her and either one of us." I said.
There was a moment of silence before Orna said. "Or the three of us."
"Interesting, but why?" I asked, still looking at the comical scene in front of us.
There was a long moment of silence while Orna contemplated the reason for everything, and then it hit her. "Coral feels like a spurned lover." I look at Orna while mind returns to the day we left District 4. Everything is now starting to make sense. "Coral wants to kill me because I got close to you, and you even flirted with me as well, while she never got to do that." she continued.
I lean in and whisper in Orna's ear. When I finish, I look Orna in her eyes and all I was an empty void, and Orna had a blank stare on her face. "You're serious?" she asked.
"As a heart attack." I said.
Orna took a moment to mull my words over and then reached out with her left hand, wrapping it around the base of my skull and pulled me in for a long, slow kiss. That was my first kiss—and given the fact I know what will be happening to me after I leave this place—I'm glad it was with Orna who kissed me before my innocence has been completely defiled by Snow's evil plans.
We break the kiss, and then we return our attention to the Careers. The boy from 1 was still at the Cornucopia while Coral had walked away in the direction of the plains. I nod for Orna to go after Coral, and then I exit the hiding spot to confront the boy. I'm mulling over in my head on what I should do, but I know what I should do. The boy spots me and struggles to get to his feet. I don't even give him a chance to ready his weapon; I lift my trident, cock my arm back, and hurl my weapon at the boy. The trident gets lodged in the boy's chest, which causes the boy to cough up blood.
Should I have given the boy a chance to defend himself? Probably, but it's a fight I didn't want to prolong incase he finds a way to fight through the pain. I thought as I approach the boy. I watch in silence as the boy draws his final breath and then lies still. I look into his eyes, and I see the light disappear from them.
Boom! Boom!
I realize that the second blast was that either Orna, or Coral had died. Though if I'm being honest that second blast sounded differently. So, I rush off in the direction I had seen Orna, and Coral go. I run for a long time before I even see the aftermath of their struggle. AS I'm approaching the scene, I hear the cannon blast. I see Coral's lifeless body hanging from a rope by her foot, her throat had been slit. The blood was still slowly dripping from her throat, but I can see a trail of blood moving away from Coral's body. I know that the coming situation is going to be bad, but nothing could prepare myself for the scene I came upon: thirty feet away I see Orna had a puncture wound in her abdomen and was still bleeding.
"This couldn't have been from Coral." I said, as I approached.
"No. It was a trap that the Gamemakers set off." Orna choked out, curled up in the fetal position.
Orna's skin is pale, clammy, and she's sweating profusely. She's going into—.
"I know I'm going into shock; you dummy. The Gamemakers set the trap off so you wouldn't have to kill me. Now help me out here and help me sit up against the tree."
I help Orna struggle to sit up and then lean back against the tree. I reach for my bag, but I realized I left it at camp this morning. At that moment, we heard a dinging sound. We looked up to see a silver parachute land on the ground next to Orna. I open the box that was attached to the parachute and saw that it was a syringe filled with a clear substance. There was piece of paper wrapped around syringe. All that was written on the paper was: to ease the pain.
"It's morphling, a high-end pain killer." she said.
I prepare the syringe, and then push the needle into Orna's arm. I depress the plunger and I can see Orna visibly relax.
The drug is working. I thought.
"Tell me a story." Orna said, reaching out for my hand
I cut Coral down and lay her on the ground so her body could be collected. The hovercraft comes to collect her body as sat down next to Orna. I take Orna's hand as I begin this long-winded story—that was totally made up—about a boy and a girl that went on this grand adventure. The story went on for a good ten minutes, or longer. Before I even finished my story, I felt Orna's hand go limp and then I heard the boom of the cannon signifying that Orna had passed on. I fight back tears, not wanting to give the Capitol the pleasure of knowing they stole someone I that I had befriended. I picked Orna up and carry her out into the open. After I lay Orna on the ground, I look at her one last time, remembering our time together, and then kiss Orna on her forehead.
As I kissed Orna's forehead, I heard Claudius Templesmith announce me as the champion of this years Hunger Games, but I don't feel like a champion. My win here feels like a colossal failure because now I have to play Snow's sick and twisted games to protect my family in District 4. I feel like the people who died actually won, and I lost. The crown that I'm going to be receiving in a few days is going to feel more like a noose around neck, than a crown on my head. I step away from Orna's body as the hovercrafts were coming to collect us both.
As I step onto the hovercraft, I begin to contemplate my feelings as I ride back to the Capitol. I've never felt fearful of anything in my life before, not even the times I get into serious trouble when I was growing up, but I'm no longer a kid and I'm about to see the seedier side of the Capitol.
