When she wakes up, she thinks of what she can do while her allies stay on the island. The faces of the girls from Ten and Eleven appear in the sky while she's up, and a few hours later, another cannon fires. She gets a snack in the meantime, while waiting for her allies to wake up. The ham sandwich is surprisingly cold. She realizes that she hasn't eaten since the bloodbath.
When her allies wake up, they do nothing but talk about home. Rae also involves herself in their conversations, but for some reasons, she feels more like a third wheel, especially after she disagrees with them in just waiting around here. She's not gonna sit on the beach for five days! This arena is big. She knows there has to be more opportunities somewhere.
Although not obvious, since the sky in Lunatide Island is pink whether it's day or night, Rae asks her allies a question that night.
"Can I borrow the boat then come back on day seven?"
Angela and Rubie look at her as if she grew a third eye.
Angela speaks first. "I don't mind." Angela realizes that this sounds like a bad idea, because if Rae doesn't come back, Angela and Rubie will be stuck on this island for the rest of the games.
Rubie then adds, "Well, leave your stuff here. That way, we'll know you're coming back."
Rae grits her teeth, thinking. "Fine. Deal." Rae has a feeling she will find something out there with this boat. She found it for her team after all.
So that night, Rae rows out of Lunatide Island. All she has with her is a lamp and a bottle of water. No food. No bags. Nothing else. On shallow water, she is having difficulty rowing out, and on her way out, she sees the face of the boy from Eight in the sky. She continues to row out in the dark anyway. She's used to seeing the sunlight more often, but she's working on the dark for now. She isn't tired yet, especially on a boring day like this.
After a few hours, Lunatide Island is quite a distance away from her now. It's early in the morning of Day Four, and the dark purple sky soon brightens up.
It's funny to think that she is able to sleep on the boat on her own, with no guard up. Dang, she sure likes to live a bit dangerously sometimes.
Based on where the gigantic ball of light is positioned, she can guess that it's either almost noontime, or a bit past it. The lavender waves around her feel serene, but she can feel something off beneath her.
That's when she looks down and wonders why it's blue. She looks around her to double check. Other parts of this sea are lavender, and it is lavender because the sky is lavender at daytime, and it is reflected on the water. But… there's a deep blue part that just doesn't go well with the rest of the sea.
Reluctantly, Rae makes the daring decision to dive into the deep. Swimming is hard, so she lifts her head above the surface not long after. She doesn't have anything or anybody but herself, and though she's disgusted having to touch water every now and then, this deep blue spot is something life just offered her, and she's not saying no to this opportunity.
She tries to dive again, but she can't. Before she makes a third attempt, she finds a large buoy, surrounded by smaller ones, with a smaller signboard than the one she saw in Lunatide Island. She paddles towards it.
"Welcome to Palm Abyss, also known as the Deep Blue," reads Rae, raising an eyebrow. "As you see, this dungeon is deep, so open one of the smaller buoys for tools to help you dive deeper than you normally can on your own. Meet me down there, and I will give you further instructions about this trial. Best of luck! -Deep Blue Cuttlefish"
Rae paddles herself to one of the smaller buoys. She opens it to find a device she can put on her mouth, to breathe underwater. However, as she puts it on, she can feel herself suffocating, so she removes it and says, "It only works underwater I guess." She tries it out, and indeed, the device only works underwater. She sees a thing light up, and it tells her the battery level of the device.
The other thing inside the buoy is a propeller. She wears it on her back like a backpack, and with her breather on, she dives down with ease. She can also breathe underwater, at least until the battery of the device lasts.
She can see the boy from Twelve doing a challenge on a mesh board, but what catches her eye more is the talking sea creature.
"Welcome to the Deep Blue!" it speaks. "Are you here to attempt the Trial of Depth?"
Rae nods.
"You can speak with your Aquus."
"Oh?" Rae says. "Cool!"
"Okay where was I… ah! To complete the trial of depth, you have to solve a tangram puzzle." It points to an available station. "But first, you must unlock the pieces among seven rope mazes." It continues to point at seven mesh boards placed in different levels of the abyss. "You need to release a key through the rope maze, and when you do that, you can use the key to unlock the treasure chest, and you have to do this seven times for the seven pieces. Lose a piece, and you're gonna need to start over with a new station."
Rae looks at the boy from Twelve.
"As you can see, we already have somebody else attempting this challenge, so if you finish it ahead of him, you win the reward. Otherwise, all you will get is… a consolation prize."
Rae did not come here to win just food. She could have done that back in Lunatide Island. She's here for the big prize, and what way to make it more difficult by having a challenger.
"Warning, you do not have all day before your Aquus runs out of battery. Good luck!"
"Thanks, Mister Squid!" Rae says.
"I'm not a squid!" It uses one of its tentacles for a facepalm. "I am a cuttlefish! Why do I have to explain myself for the second time!?"
"Sorry, Mis-"
"Go go, good luck!" The cuttlefish shoos her away.
She hurries down with her propeller to the closest rope maze. This feels a bit like the bloodbath all over again, except it's a key stuck on it. As she guides the key to follow the rope that is tied around the mesh board, she can't help but see the boy from Twelve already at the third station, when she's just at her first. Being the impatient person she is, Rae tries to hurry getting the key out of the rope.
When she does that, she uses the key to unlock the chest. She finds a big triangle inside it, and she thinks of bringing it to her station right in front of the big cuttlefish, but then she doesn't want to lose it, so she closes the chest and will come back to it. She doesn't lock the chest anymore, in case she loses the key.
She moves to the second station, doing the same thing, but it's a bit deeper than where the first station is positioned, and the rope seems longer here. The boy from Twelve is on his fourth station, and Rae wants to beat the boy.
Cut to a few hours, the boy from Twelve is starting his seventh and final station, whereas Rae is only halfway through her sixth. She has made up some ground – or well, water – but the boy is still ahead of him. The mazes get more and more complex, and inserting the key over and around the square holes of the mesh board becomes time-consuming and tiring.
Eventually, she unlocks her sixth chest and moves to her last rope maze too. The mesh board is now probably four or five times bigger than she is, whereas the first mesh board was only the size of a sheet of long bond paper. When she feels like she's halfway through her maze, she can see the boy from Twelve unlocking his chest then swimming up with his propeller.
Rae can't allow this! She needs to hurry up, or she'll be here for noth-
"Wait a minute…" she murmurs. She has an idea. It is not the best idea, but at the same time, it is the best idea yet.
She abandons her key and swims up as well.
Now she thinks she can beat the boy to the puzzle.
She may not have her puzzle piece, but she can still find a way around it.
Rae grabs the foot of the boy from Twelve.
"What are you doing?"
Rae doesn't answer him. Instead, she pulls him down as much as she can with her propeller, fighting off the opposite force of his propeller.
"Hey! What are you doing!?" Panic settles in his voice even more now.
Rae still doesn't respond. Not only is she pulling him down, but she is trying to climb her way to his level.
"Stop!" The boy tries his best to push her away, but underwater, it doesn't feel the same as it is above water.
Rae now has her hands on his piece.
"Don't you even think about it!" The boy now kicks her on the face, and Rae lets go.
But this is not how the queen loses! Well, neither is this the way a queen is supposed to act, but right now, all she needs is to win for herself.
And so, propelling up a bit to chase the boy, she puts her hands on his puzzle piece once again.
The boy kicks her again, this time on her stomach.
She lets go, but she refuses to give up. Rae is resilient. She doesn't back down when Aveline prevented her from being the queen. She fights back, even taking it too far, but nobody has to know that.
Except, everybody is now going to see how Rae unplugs the boy's Aquus and pulls it away from him forcibly. He tries to cover his mouth, but then he realizes that's not the problem. He tries to take the device from her hands.
"You didn't wanna give up the piece earlier, didn't you?"
Alas, the boy can't speak, and he lets go of his tangram piece, to save his life. He needs the device to convert water into oxygen, but all that comes out of his mouth is…
Blub blub blub…
"Can't get it in time can you?" Rae bullies. She watches as the boy tries to reach out for air, but after a few more seconds, he stops struggling.
"Oop, a cannon just fired!" reports the cuttlefish.
Rae just drowned her second fourteen-year-old.
As she looks down for the tangram piece he dropped, she can't see it. She's not gonna go all the way down for it. She'd rather go back to her last station, and so she does that.
With all the time she has, she unlocks her last chest. From there, she collects the puzzle pieces from each chest she unlocked.
By the time she swims back to her tangram station, she tries different combinations to fit the tangram puzzle together, until finally…
"Congratulations!" The cuttlefish says, with half of its tentacles raised. "You have successfully completed the Trial of Depth. For being the first to do so, you have earned… the mighty… blue… aqua vest!"
With one tentacle, the cuttlefish takes out a weird-looking vest.
"To use it, all you have to do is… wear it, and it should allow you to breathe underwater as well as above water! At the same time, you can now control how deep you go underwater, because this vest lets you control your buoyancy. How cool is that!?"
Rae snickers, remembering what she just did to get this reward. At the end of the day, only one person is going to win the Hunger Games, and she can't wait to be a real queen when the crown is placed above her head.
"As promised, you also get food, so I will offer you…" The cuttlefish looks around to realize he has nothing. He scratches his head then says, "Aha! I'll give you freshwater in a canteen."
"Yes!" Rae is running out of water to drink, so this is perfect.
"We know water is important, so you can bring this up with you. Again, congratulations, and may Lord Ðravynwenge bless you with guidance."
"Thanks, Mister Squi-"
"Ah-ah-ah!" The cuttlefish raises three tentacles defensively.
Rae doesn't finish. The cuttlefish gives her an unamused look, before hiding in its den. She wears the vest, then removes her propeller and Aquus. She basically replaces the purpose of two battery-powered items with her one special vest. She also brings up her canteen of water.
She started out not really knowing how to swim, and now here she is swimming up, up, and away from the Deep Blue.
When she reaches the surface, the sun is just about to set. Her boat has drifted a distance away from where she originally left it, but now that she has her vest. She would still rather bring the boat back, but she can swim to it.
On her way to the boat, she remembers her disgust with water and hoping not to even step foot into the sea before entering the arena. At the same time, she feels like this is a part of something life has to offer. She has a new skill, she guesses. She made a kill. She gets a useful reward, along with freshwater!
She can feel the boat drifting even further and further away. She knows she has taken a long time when she feels exhaustion starting to wear her down, and Rae has been drinking her water supply as she goes. She knows she's taking even longer when she sees the faces of the boys from Eleven and Twelve in the sky.
Rae starts to worry. She can still see the silhouette of her boat, but she can't reach it for some reason.
As she holds onto a buoy placed conveniently, the sound of a thunderclap makes her heart race.
"This is not good…"
