Chapter Fifty-Seven: Together is Better
Still Somehow Day Four
Toren Laris, District Nine Female
I'm taking a nice, leisurely walk, trying to conserve energy so I don't needlessly consume the rest of the meager gift I got out of the boy from Three. I've still got the knife I used on him, so I'm currently wondering what might fall next to its blade. Maybe myself, if the Careers find me and are feeling poetic or some garbage like that. Maybe a mutt, if the Gamemakers decide to—
In that awkward transitional period between two thoughts, something slams into me and I'm on my ass in half a second flat. Before anything else registers in my addled brain, I notice the girl, and every sense I have goes on high alert as I leap to my feet. But then I see her face.
Hold up. She definitely doesn't look like she wants to attack me unless she's a celebrity-tier actress: no strong attacker looks like they want nothing more than to hide behind a bush. Her eyes keep jumping around like someone's on her tail (which they very well might be, I'm in no position to judge) and her clothes are smeared with filth.
The words come out of her mouth before she even seems to process them. "Do you want to team up?"
It takes a few seconds of consideration. My only ally died within the first hour of the Games, but I've been able to hack it on my own since. However, the girl's bag does seem to have far more supplies than I'm carrying, and that's hard to say no to. Plus, if anyone's going to be doing the backstabbing here, it's going to be me.
"I'll give it a shot," I say. "Toren Laris, District Nine."
She gives me her hand to shake. "Zari Morelett, District Six."
If I remember correctly, this girl scored higher than I did but not by much. I wouldn't consider her that much of an upgrade from Marius as a result, but…
I shake my head to clear out the offending thoughts. Great. I'm so far down the fucking Games rabbit hole I'm thinking of my allies as tools and nothing more. It's sound strategy-wise, but it feels just like something a stereotypical Career would do. I really hope I don't need to adopt that manner of thinking anytime soon.
"Another thing," Zari said. "I'm allied with Lacey, she's from Eight. She's still out there somewhere, but I couldn't find her when I looked and I didn't want to draw attention to myself if I could avoid it. I'd look for her if we can."
That gets me a bit more suspicious. There have been a couple of cannons recently: maybe Zari disposed of her ally and is just trying to cover it up. I'll stay vigilant in the meantime, but once the Capitol displays the faces of the fallen tributes, I'll know for sure.
Might as well give her a simple test. "Well, what split you up?"
Zari spits out the words in one breathless sentence. "She killed one of the Careers and their angry ally chased us down."
Wait, what? "Did you say ally, singular?"
"Well, we only got chased by one person. Good thing, too: more and I probably wouldn't be talking right now. They went after Lacey instead of me, and that was the last I saw of her."
If Zari's statement can be taken at face value (which it probably cannot), that implies either the Careers have been dropping like workers during harvest season or they've somehow split up. Last night, there were at least four Careers alive, so even if Zari and her friend got rid of one of them, theoretically they'd have at least two pursuers, maybe three if they didn't care about guarding the Cornucopia in the process of chasing Zari and Lacey down. Once more, the faces in the sky will tell me more about that tomorrow, so all I can do at the moment is wait.
Might as well make the most of it while I can. "Stick together for now? Maybe look for Lacey while we're at it and make a team of three?"
"I'm all for that," Zari says.
With good luck, this alliance will at least last a bit longer than my first one. Unfortunately, everything about that may as well be out of my hands at this point.
Romeo Brady, District Eight Male
The last time I remember a day being this hot, the factory I worked at gave everyone the afternoon off. Sure, that only happened after some of the older employees fell over from heat exhaustion, but it's the thought that counts, right?
Maxxer looks like he's about to fall over if he takes another step, and I'm not sure how I look but I definitely feel that way. I doubt either of us wants to come down with heat stroke during the Games, so I make the executive decision to just stop. Maxxer does the same right alongside me, and the two of us practically collapse, panting hard.
He can barely form words. "Need… rest…"
"Maybe… water," is my only response. I'm not sure how much (if any) we have, but if nothing else the Gamemakers have been kind to us about resources so far. There's enough food and (probably) clean water that so far keeping healthy hasn't been too much of an issue. I'm sure we can find some nearby if we're really stuck.
That's a good short-term goal, but soon, we'll have to figure out what our long-term goal is. Unfortunately, the odds of us taking on the Careers and winning are basically zero, and because the Gamemakers are watching everything, at least one is almost a lock to make it to the finale. At this point, it's just a question of how we get sponsors, or at least attract some attention. We're quickly becoming the weakest tributes left, and that's not just a problem because everyone else is overshadowing us, but because if we have to kill someone, I'd prefer an easy target to start with.
When we check our supplies (not a difficult endeavor, considering we're only a step above having absolutely nothing), we don't have any water left. Well, the good news is while I have a headache, it's not pounding or anything, so once the two of us get moving I'm sure we can find some. Neither of us appears to have any appetite, and we barely have any food anyway, so eating's out of the question anyway.
"So," I say, trying to figure out something to do while we try and regain some energy. "Any long-term plans brewing that you'd like to tell me?"
"Unfortunately, no," Maxxer says. "Besides staying alive, of course."
I decide the time has come to be blunt. "I think we need to kill someone."
Maxxer shows surprisingly little resistance, which once would be something that shocked me but now I've moved past caring. "You have any targets?"
"I'd say we wait until we know who's alive, then we can figure out who we're looking for."
If I remember correctly, there were fifteen tributes left last time the anthem played. Together, we could potentially overpower somewhere between three and five of them as long as they were alone. It always has the chance of going wrong, but that's a hazard of the Games.
As long as there's a weaker tribute or two we could potentially get rid of, the Capitol might leave us alone for now. But when that goes away…
I shake my head. I don't even want to think about that right now.
Godric Runestone, District Two Male
It doesn't take a genius to tell Sienna's not doing so hot.
Physically, she's here. I can figure that out. Even with the absolutely scorching weather that makes me want to rip most of my clothes off here and now, she's toiled alongside me as we hunted and has yet to complain or even ask for a break. However, she's got a death grip on her trident and her eyes keep jumping around for no real reason. Something's not sitting right with her, and I might as well try and figure out what before we get much further. The less horrible shit we have on our minds, the better, am I right?
Let's try and get this started now. "You want to take a break?"
"A break sounds nice," Sienna says, and that gets the chain of events in motion. We find a spot that has a reasonable amount of shade to his name (although being in the woods kind of makes that a trivial task) and lean against a tree. Both of us know better than to sit down, since trouble could arrive without warning and we're wide open for attack right now, but we still try and rest as well as we can. In the event the anti-Careers or even Clara and Galadia come after us, I'd like to be at full strength. We'll fight them on our terms.
Sienna takes a quick drink from our meager water supplies, I do the same. Then, the two of us just shut off the rest of the world, sweating profusely. Unfortunately for both Sienna and I, that means that if I want to make my move, I have to do it now.
"Are you okay?"
Sienna blushes, which is not an expression I expected to see on her. Does she have some kind of secret crush on me or something? I really hope not: I've got someone waiting back home, after all.
"No! I mean, yes! I'm fine, why are you asking?"
"You seem a bit shaky," is my only response.
"A little," Sienna concedes. "This afternoon kind of hit hard."
I understand, at least a little. While I can't say that our kill earlier was that gruesome by comparison or anything (I've seen plenty of worse ones watching prior Hunger Games to prepare for this one), it's just hard for some people to handle it. I'm not sure how Four trains their Careers, since I've never left District Two and the training facility only mentioned One and Four's training academies in passing, but I'm guessing they have to focus on different stuff than we are.
"There's going to be a lot of things in the Games that hit hard," I say, and I mean that. While our kill earlier today probably propelled us back into the spotlight, at least for now, I bet Clara and Galadia are getting a lot more attention than we are, just because they're trying something a bit different than most standard Careers. And there's no way they didn't get at least one of the three kills that happened since the last time the Capitol showed us who had died.
Sienna dry-swallows, then stands up uneasily. "I hope I can fix this. If either of us wants to win, I have to figure out how to get over myself. I'm sure Clara has, fuck it, I'm sure basically everyone has. How is this still a goddamn problem, why can't I…"
Sienna's train of thought quickly derails, to the point where I decide it's best to cut her off before she begins doubting herself so much. "We'll be fine. You handled yourself well enough earlier today, what's to say you can't do it again?"
"Right," Sienna says. "Just like today. I can do it again. I can do it again. I can…"
Well, that didn't work nearly as well as I expected it to, but at least it did something, which was ultimately the point of having this conversation, right? Maybe I'll need to take a different angle next time, maybe I'll get away with not having to get her back in the game again. I'd hope it's the latter, but hope has no place in the Hunger Games.
Hopefully Sienna can stay with me, at least for a little longer. Once we take out Clara and Galadia, I theoretically could handle the rest of the Games on my own, but good company's a great thing to keep the demons at bay, and Sienna's definitely good company.
"Do we even bother going back to the Cornucopia at this point?" It's an honest question, because I legitimately don't know if we left anything even remotely valuable behind last time.
"One more night," Sienna says. "Now that we have some more space in our supplies, let's gather anything we think might be useful, then we can be more mobile."
Thus, the two of us begin to head back, sweating profusely as the last of today's sun beats down on us, ready to cook us alive if it gets the chance.
Thomiah Marshall, District Eleven Male
As it turns out, we didn't find Canoe Station B, but we did find Canoe Station C.
We didn't want to leave any marks in case someone else got here before we did, so once we got the canoe to shallow enough water, the two of us picked up the canoe and stowed it the best we could, concealing it somewhat with the other canoes. It's not the best disguise, anyone with eyes will see it's there, but at the very least they might not think anything weird about it being there.
This part of the arena doesn't seem to have that much use for me, but it's definitely going to be useful for Odysea. Apparently this is some kind of place to practice your archery, because there's about a dozen brightly colored targets all facing the same direction, alongside a few bows and a couple dozen arrows. A lot of them have these weird coverings over them, presumably to blunt the points in case someone tries to shoot someone else's eye out, but in the event we actually need to do any shooting they shouldn't be that difficult to remove. There appears to be some kind of shed in the corner, but the door's locked and none of the shed's materials look breakable without an explosive.
At the other end of the space, in between the two targets closest to what I guess is the center, is what appears to be some kind of scoring metric. I'm not sure exactly what for, since it's too far away, but Odysea, smiling widely, does the job for me without a second thought.
When she comes back, she's more than willing to tell me. "It looks like some kind of contest happened here, and the board displays all the best scores that happened at that contest. Although there was something weird at the bottom of it…"
Okay, that's not ominous at all. "Go on."
"The board says that the first person to beat the current high score will receive a prize. Obviously, nothing on the board about the prize, because that'd make things too easy, but I figure I might as well try while we're here."
I don't see anything wrong with that. "Sounds like a great idea. Hopefully we can get something nice out of this."
"Let's hope," Odysea says, putting down her supplies and getting one of the bows from the ground alongside a cluster of arrows. She takes a few practice shots, several of them going way off-target, though thankfully none of them come anywhere close to me. I'm not sure what the high score is or even how to obtain it, but I doubt she's getting it this time.
It's going to be dark out pretty soon, so Odysea will have to quit shooting so we can find a place to sleep in a bit, but I'm sure that won't be too hard. Even if this place is pretty visible, that applies to anyone that tries sneaking up on us as well. As long as we keep our shifts, anyone or anything that gets close to us will be easy enough to see, and hopefully to counter as well.
It's probably coming soon, since things haven't been going too badly for us as of late. At least two other tributes weren't so lucky today, so that means less competition. Maybe we're past the halfway point, maybe not, I lost track of who's dead and who isn't a while back. Nowadays the Gamemakers tend to make an announcement when the Final Eight has been reached, so when that happens I'll at least know we're close.
Before long, Odysea joins me. "I can't see where I'm shooting well enough anymore, I'm taking a break."
"That's fine, we need to figure out where we're going to sleep anyway," I say.
Fortunately, that doesn't take long. As long as we're hidden from anyone that happens to take a trip across the lake, we probably should be fine. I can see the border somewhat nearby, its surface faintly reflecting what's left of the sunlight, so I doubt anyone's going to try and sneak up on us from that direction. Therefore, we just move into the cover of a stand of trees, taking everything we have with us to keep that hidden as well.
With nothing else left to do, the two of us collapse side by side, watching the last of the sun slip below the horizon as we prepare for the night to come.
Alliances:
-Loyalist Careers: Godric, Sienna
-Anti-Careers: Thomiah, Odysea
-Together by Chance: Zari, Toren
-Misery Loves Company: Romeo, Maxxer
-Loners (for now): Clara, Rhaemyr, Sotia, Lacey
Author's Notes:
-Well, Day Four has come to a conclusion. I can say that once the deaths of the day become known, the dynamics with some of the teams might get a bit weird... but then again, there's been a lot of weird so far.
-I added an extra section to Day Four because the first chapter centering around it really didn't cover much time. We'll return to our two chapters per day/night cycle for Night Four.
-When it comes to the heat, I'm speaking from personal experience. Yesterday while at summer camp, I'm pretty confident the sun was trying to melt my face off. Fortunately, the camp only runs on weekdays, so on the weekends, I can stay cool. And write a lot more!
-That's all for now. See you next chapter!