Chapter Sixty-Two: A Little More Action, Please

Night Five

Zari Morelett, District Six Female

Fortunately, unlike the storm from last night, this one looks like it's passing quickly. While I can still hear thunder and see lightning, it's moving through pretty quickly. I guess the Gamemakers only had one storm in them today.

Whatever containers we could use are full of water, so that'll be one less thing to worry about for a while. I'm not sure how we'll manage to handle everything else, but that's for the future. Now, there's nothing immediate to worry about.

Toren, however, isn't quite as easy to please. "We need to start making waves."

I know exactly what she means, despite how much I don't want to. Not that I have any right to disapprove, but that doesn't make the whole thing any less nausea-inducing.

Still, I might as well try and get us on track, if nothing else. I'm going to have to suck it up eventually. "I think I have a plan for that."

A raised eyebrow. "So, what's your next step, then?"

Anything I might have planned to say gets interrupted by a howl piercing the night, joined quickly by several others. Both of us, likely running on the same assumption, grab all the supplies we have and throw ourselves to our feet, ready to get moving.

This action gets proven useful once the noises' origin slinks into the moonlight. Wolves, at least four of them that I can see. Probably Gamemaker-bred mutt wolves on top of that, and enough that fighting them with what limited weapons we have is a terrible idea. Time to tack that onto our list of worries. Although, this one at least has a simple enough solution.

"How about we run?"

That's something we can both agree on, fortunately enough, which means sprinting in the other direction like our lives depend on it (which they probably do) and praying the wolves don't catch up. In the first few instants, probably the most important moment, they howl and snap at us, but they're not within biting distance. Yet.

Neither of us speaks a word for the next ten minutes or so, wanting to devote every breath to keeping us in motion. Even though I would hesitate to call myself out of shape, sheer terror is the only thing keeping me going at breakneck pace after the first few minutes. I don't want to know what these things will do to me if they reach me, and that's all I care about at the moment. I'm not sure about Toren, but I'm sure her thought process is pretty similar.

Then, right as my legs are about to give out, it's over. I'm not sure what tips me off, but I finally glance over my shoulder, just for a second, to find the wolves no longer chasing us. They're still staring us down, but the Gamemakers clearly got what they wanted out of us.

Toren doesn't seem to notice, though, waving me forward like a crazy woman. "Come on, we need to keep going!"

"Look," I say. "They're not following us."

While I assume that can be taken as a silver lining of this whole horrible affair, since that means they're not interested in killing us, that could also carry far worse implications. Maybe we were too far away from everyone else to be interesting, so those wolves were meant to drag us back into the action whether we wanted to be there or not.

"That's not what I meant," Toren says. "This is probably another trap, we need to get out of here before it goes off."

My legs are screaming at me and I'm about ready to pass out, but I'm not going to argue Toren's logic here. I mean, what's the worst that happens if she's wrong? We walk a little farther for no good reason. I mean, I'm not saying that's a good thing in any capacity, but I'll take that over being dead any day.

Thus, I follow Toren as she enters a stretch of thick, damp woods, ready to settle down for the night but not quite willing yet. That'll take time, time I hope we still have at this point.

The clock's ticking whether we want it to or not.

Maxxer "Max" Bent, District Twelve Male

I manage to open my eyes somehow, and immediately wish I hadn't.

I only have access to half of my field of vision at the moment, the left side of my face feeling like someone set it on fire. On instinct, I move to touch it, then my brain catches up to the rest of my body and I jerk my hands back, swearing under my breath.

It hurts and hurts bad, but I'm not going to get anything done lying here. I'd ask Romeo what to do but he doesn't seem to be here, so I'll have to forge ahead on my own for now. Not helping is that I don't seem to have anything with me; I guess that fucker from Three stole all our supplies when she did this to my face. Maybe if I rinse off in a stream or something, I'll be able to fix whatever the fuck just happened to me, although nothing will replace the missing supplies. It's a terrible plan, but it's also the only idea I have.

Somehow I manage to get up, even though just that much motion is enough to make the air feel like it's stabbing me in the face. I don't remember where the closest stream is anymore, but I stumble in the direction I think works best anyway, gritting my teeth and taking stops every ten feet to try and get used to pain like I've never felt before in my life. If anyone wanted to kill me, I'd be wide open.

Fortunately for me, I make it to the bank of the nearest stream without encountering anyone. Dropping to my hands and knees and straining against the urge to scream from the agony, I manage to get my face wet.

The water somehow manages to make things worse, turning that fire into a boiling knife crammed into my eye. If my stomach wasn't empty, it would have been in a second. A lot of agony and dry-heaving later, the feeling from the water finally begins to fade, bringing me back to the same threshold of agony as before.

Well, that more or less settles it: the left half of my face got hit by whatever fucking poison that girl we were chasing used. The eye's blind, possibly forever. The rest of my face is in pain, but most of it seems centered on that. I'm not sure if it'll fade with time, but I am sure that my number one priority at the moment is to figure out how to deal with that.

Number two is finding out where Romeo went, if anywhere. Maybe he's dead, maybe he ditched me, maybe he's just looking for food or water or something. I can't really tell time at the moment, but I'm going to give him the closest approximation to thirty minutes that I have before I start moving. I don't want to wander off if he's still around.

Unfortunately, I only have so many ways to waste time. First I try counting by ones, twos, and threes, but in each attempt, I only make it about a hundred numbers down the list before I give up. I watch the sky for a while, but it's so static and dreary that I get bored with that in a hurry as well. Tuning my ears back into the surroundings, I listen for footsteps, but I get nothing, friend or foe.

I take a trip to the stream again, this time to get a drink, then return. Still no Romeo. I'm not sure when or if he's ever coming at this point, but that's no reason to not keep my hopes up. He would have done the same if our roles were reversed, after all.

Eventually, as much as I would have liked to remain in ignorant bliss, I have to admit that I don't think Romeo's coming back. It's been too long, and I feel like he would have left something behind. Now, the time has come to leave this place behind.

Any chance of winning the Games is more or less gone at this point, but at the very least I might be able to squeeze some enjoyment out of my last days in this world. Maybe having fun is easier when you know that in the long term, nothing you do will matter. I'm probably going to wind up dead in the next few days anyway.

I should be disappointed at that outcome, but in reality, could I truthfully say I expected anything less?

Odysea Davos, District Eleven Female

For the second time this Games, I'm woken up early by Thomiah. Hoping the Gamemakers didn't decide to drop another bear on us, I scramble out of my sleeping bag and move to grab whatever weapon's nearest before Thomiah shakes his head.

"This isn't that urgent yet," he says. "I still thought you should know, though."

With a simple pointing motion, now I can see what he's talking about. It's hard to see, just a tiny yellow speck in a sea of black and deep blue, but based on everything that's happened so far, that's another canoe on the lake. It's still too far away for me to figure out which direction they're headed, but since Thomiah didn't see them (and vice versa) near our camp, there's slightly less than a fifty-fifty shot we'll have company on the shore soon.

Thomiah turns back to me. "So, what's our plan?"

In just about any other situation, I'd at least wait for the canoe to get closer before working out what our next steps needed to be. However, this is not any other situation. With the population rapidly approaching single digits, we need to do something to stand out from the crowd if we want any hope of being allowed to survive much longer.

As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. "I say we go for them."

Thomiah looks at me, more than a bit confused. "You sure we can hold our own on the water? Can you even swim?"

"We need to do something," I say. "We haven't made any kills since the Bloodbath, or even had any exciting encounters after…" I trail off there; hopefully, Thomiah understands I mean the bear that killed Artesia. "We sail over and take out whoever's in that canoe, boom, both problems solved."

Thomiah seems to understand a bit better now that I've gotten the semantics under control. "I get what you're saying, but that still might do more harm than good if you're terrible in the water. Do you know how to swim?"

I nod without a second of hesitation. I haven't done much swimming in my life, but I know the fundamentals. If Thomiah gets dragged under by something, I most likely won't be able to save him, but the same would probably be true if I could swim anyway, since doing that would make me a sitting duck.

The benefits of having an ally come into play shortly after that. "This may just be me, but if there was ever a time to use some of the serum, I'd do it now."

I'd almost forgotten about that stuff. Still, I agree with him on that front; better to overcompensate than not compensate enough. "All of it?"

"I say we restrict ourselves to one of the vials, and we each get half," Thomiah says. "Let's save the other one for a real emergency, or at least later in the Games."

My only response to that is a nod. Looks like we're set on what we're going to do, now comes the time to do it.

Thomiah opens one of the tubes and leaves the other untouched. "I'd drink half of each tube, but I'm worried I'll spill the serum trying to transfer it, and keeping one of the tubes airtight is probably a smarter idea. Now, I'll drink as close to exactly half as I can, then you take the other half. Let's do this."

He proceeds to do just that, half the vial (okay, maybe a little more) disappearing down his throat, which means the rest is for me. Not even bothering to be careful since no one else will be using this tube, I throw back its contents as hard as possible, wanting it all in my system at once.

Our preparation for what's likely going to be an upcoming fight takes what feels like seconds. I grab a bow, Thomiah grabs a bladed weapon, and the two of us race to get the canoe into proper position. Before we get anywhere, Thomiah grabs the sticks we used to help us get across the first time, keeping one for himself and tossing the other to me.

Focusing harder than any other time in my life, I help Thomiah push the canoe off the bank and start rowing as hard as I can, the bow I've been practicing with right beside me. Despite everything, I feel a smile coming to my face, every extremity and limb on my body loosening up as the serum starts kicking in.

I really hope this works, but either way, I've got a feeling this is going to be fun.

Sienna Starboard, District Four Female

Out here, even with the lake reflecting what little moonlight gets through, my vision isn't the best. Back home, there was hardly ever a reason to go out at night, even at the training facility, so I got used to having light whenever I needed to do something.

Here, that's not helping very much. Fortunately, Godric seems to have better vision than I do, so at least we can be sure we don't run into anything or anyone unexpected while we're out here.

"Hey," Godric whispers, pointing. "There's another boat on the lake, and it's coming right for us."

I can't see anything but murk in the distance, but I'm taking his word there. "Is there anyone in it?"

"I'm not a sailing expert, but I don't think canoes can steer or row themselves," Godric says. "Looks like we have some company."

Well, that's just great. Unknown company on the water is never a good sign. Even though I can swim well enough that I shouldn't have to worry about getting out of the lake if the boat becomes unusable for some reason, getting in the water while being attacked may as well be a death sentence if your opponents have a boat. Thus, swimming over there to try and tip the boat over or something is out of the question, and I'm not sure if combat in a space this cramped will go well, even if both of us are likely armed and prepared better than whoever we're going to face.

Then the first arrow flies six inches to my left. "Shit, they're shooting at us!"

"Do we have any ranged weapons?"

I might as well be honest here so we don't go suicide-charging the other boat. "Nothing I'm any good with!"

"No worries," Godric says, leaning out of the way just as a second arrow whizzes past. "I'm no good at long range either, let's just try and evade them for now. If they start moving in closer, you think you can go for a swim?"

Well, I guess that's a viable option if they have no longer weapons or at least aren't anywhere near as good with them. I'm not sure how deep the lake is, but if it goes down at least twelve feet or so, that should slow the arrows' momentum enough that they don't have to worry about it, then I can tip over the boat from underwater without getting within range of anything sharp.

Still, with the arrows becoming more and more accurate, we can't risk putting all our attention on rowing away if they get close enough to hit us, since being impaled by an arrow doesn't help us at all.

Our worst fears our recognized as our boats get close enough that the passengers in the other become recognizable. The anti-Careers, namely both the tributes from Eleven. The girl has the bow in her hands, while the boy is rowing, but either way, they're making alarming progress and there isn't much we can do about it.

"Godric," I say with as much courage as I can muster. "I'm going to start trying to outpace them, can you cover me?"

"Not perfectly, but well enough," he says.

"Done. Once we get to shore, if they're still aggressive, we can take them on."

Our new objective established, I start rowing as hard as I can. This is one of the few Games-related things I can say I should outclass just about anyone else who entered them, although with Vick dead, his skill at this will be forever unknown to me. Yet still, I'm barely keeping us even with them despite my best efforts, and the arrows just keep on coming. I hear a few get blocked by whatever weapon Godric's using, but none have hit us. We only have so many lucky breaks, though: we need to get to land.

Then the boat's path starts to curve for what seems to be no reason whatsoever. I manage to straighten it for a few seconds, but then it just starts curving again. Okay, what the hell?

Godric notices the curve as well. "Why aren't you rowing toward the shore? You have some plan I don't know about?"

"I'm still trying to reach the shore," I say. "I don't know what's happening…"

Then I notice the anti-Careers seem to have fallen victim to the same problem: while their boat is pointed almost straight at ours, now it's moving at a sharp angle, and one that's only growing sharper by the second.

"That can't be good," I tell Godric. "The same thing's happening to them. This screams Gamemaker interference."

The yanking sensation from down below keeps getting stronger, and even though both Godric and I are now trying to row us to land it doesn't seem to be getting any closer. Not helping is that the boat seems to want to comply with whatever's going on, too: now it's turning to a 90-degree angle from where we were trying to go. At least something positive seems to be coming out of this: the anti-Careers have stopped shooting at us and started frantically conferring as they row, although despite my best efforts I can't overhear what either of them have to say.

Just when I think things might not get any worse, they do. Our top speed starts increasing, which shouldn't be possible in a lake but what the hell do I know, and the oars keep getting harder to maintain a grip on. Godric's starting to look really panicky, and that's not a good thing since I'm sort of counting on him to be useful here. Even his voice changes pitch into something more frantic. "Sienna! You're the water expert here, what the fuck is going on?"

I still don't know, at least not yet. However, one look towards where the center of the lake was, and I'm both furious and terrified. "Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me!"

It's not just us, it's the entire lake. I'm not quite sure what the Gamemakers' goal even is by setting this on us now, but either way leads to the same result: the lake's been turned into a fucking whirlpool, and chances are, someone's about to die.

And if we don't want it to be us, we need to get moving, and fast.

Author's Notes:

-This chapter came out really quickly once I could actually get it started. The other story I was working on alongside this wrapped up, so I also had fewer plot bunnies dangling in front of my face. With those things handled, this finished up in a hurry.

-Chapters might start slowing down for a while, since my next semester of college starts on Monday and it's looking brutal. I'll try to keep it at every other week and not have months-long gaps like I used to do, but I can't make any promises.

-That's all I've got at the moment. See you next chapter (hopefully soon)!