The boom of a cannon jolts me into wakefulness. I quickly look beside me to make sure Thresh is there. He is, and I release a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. The first rays of sun have just appeared, bathing the grass in a pale dawn light. I strain my ears to listen for any sounds out of place, but hear nothing.
I realize that is the problem. There is nothing here other than the grass and the tree. There are no birds, no animals, and most importantly, no water sources. We need to find water, and fast. I nudge Thresh gently as he's slept through the cannon, and he comes to with a jolt, eyes searching for danger. "No," I say calmly. "Only me. But we need to find water."
We stretch to get the stiffness out of our limbs, grab our weapons and continue hiking. I'm really annoyed when, after an hour, I have to stop to relieve myself, watching my body dispose of more of its precious water. My desperation to find it begins to grow and I have to resist the urge to exert my body to move faster. I know that I will become dehydrated at an even quicker rate than I am already. The grass continues as far as the eye can see, so numerous and close together that it seems homogenous. I've oriented myself so that the sun is moving backwards relative to us, so that we are heading east. I know that the cornucopia is far behind me now, and the fields are on its other side.
A few hours later, still doggedly moving forward, the distant, low echo of growls begin to sound. I can see the grass far in front of me beginning to churn with movement, and the occasional flash of white amidst the static green tableau that is the grass field. Thresh has seen it too. He grips his rock more tightly in preparation to fight whatever is nearby.
It's moving closer. A howl rips through the silence, still far off but closer than the growl, and I involuntarily take a step back. Thresh barks something at me and I rejoin him, my spear in the ready position. My eyes dart from side to side, my ears prick up and my nose probes the air. The animal instincts of Old Boone as he's on the hunt fill my body. We are one now. I have never felt so alert before, not even as I watched the bloodbath yesterday. I feel myself bearing my teeth in preparation for the battle, and I tighten my grip on the spear. My breathing begins to speed up, but I feel Old Boone's calming presence next to me, and I try to emulate the calm, certain breaths issuing from him. We breathe as one now.
The distant sound of rustling grass, augmented by bloodcurdling howls, disrupts the anticipatory silence. I glance at Thresh to make sure he's still there, forgetting that if he had ran away I would have heard it. I don't want to be alone and lost in the arena. Old Boone comforts me, and the three of us continue to watch for the first sighting of our enemies.
Mutts! The capital often engineers monstrous creatures called muttations, or mutts, to add extra excitement and amusement to the games, or to force tributes towards each other or away from the edge of the arena. Perhaps if a tribute runs far enough, he can leave. I've never really given it much thought. These mutts take the form of some kind of foxes, but they've obviously been enlarged to four or five times their normal size.
One of the creatures rises into the air above the height of the grass and leaps impossibly far. The glossy white hide disappears below the grass, but I see it flash whenever the sunlight hits it. More of them are heading toward us with impossibly powerful leaps similar to the first. I wish there was a tree so that my back would be protected, but there is not. I've counted at least four of them when the front-runner reaches us and my instincts take over.
Thresh charges forward to engage the first fox, grunting with exertion as he lifts the massive rock above his head. As he brings it down the mutt dodges to the right, toward my spear, which I've leveled at it. With a sickeningly satisfying crunching feeling, the spear sinks into its chest, right where I aimed. Thresh, off balance, recovers just in time to meet the charge of the second one, crushing its skull as it whips its neck forward to bite him. With an ear-splitting shriek of pain the creature falls at his feet. I've just extricated my spear from the body of the foe I've defeated when I'm driven back by the impact of the third fox crashing into me in mid-leap. Desperately trying to regain my breath, I lay immobile for a moment before the fox presses its advantage and lays on my chest, cutting off my air. I try to move my right arm out from under it so that I can use my spear, but I'm rapidly losing energy and my efforts are for naught.
Thresh rushes back to protect my right flank. He throws his rock at the final fox, hitting it in the side and knocking it off balance for a few seconds, then lifts the fox that is currently attacking me and beats it mercilessly with his fist. Gore and flesh mingle in a sickening mixture as he crushes the life out of it and then throws the now-deformed body aside. He's panting and out of breath, as am I from falling, and neither of us are fast enough to stop the final fox, who has recovered in time to charge at Thresh, biting his hand. He grunts in pain as I drive my spear deep into the fox's mouth and puncture upward. It falls limply to the ground to join its companions.
Bedraggled, we stay where we are for half an hour or so. With difficulty I rip some of the nearby grasses to create a makeshift bandage for Thresh's wound, which is steadily bleeding. As I attempt to apply it, he flinches back involuntarily, but I try again and he manages to stay still long enough for me to clumsily put it on. He looks at me gratefully and nods. The bleeding stops after a few minutes.
"Are you able to travel," I ask thresh. He nods, and we gather our bloodied weapons and set off southward. I don't want to encounter any more fox mutts, which seem to have come from the east, the direction we'd been moving before. The hours stretch on and blur into a continuous monotony of walking. In the late afternoon I have to relieve myself again, and with a feeling of dread, notice that my urine is browning. The energy I expended during the fight with the foxes has come back to haunt me now and my parched throat makes itself known with greater urgency.
"You okay, Thresh," I ask him, mostly just to make conversation.
"No water," he says back. We both know it's true. Desperately I search for a water source but find none. I begin mentally slapping myself for not staying longer at the cornucopia and vying for the supplies. I'm sure that the careers are drinking water to their hearts' content from the lake now. I hope that the lake isn't the sole water source in the arena. My rational thought reminds me that the games usually last around two weeks, and forcing everyone to congregate at the lake for water would finish them in a matter of a few days.
I do have another option: I could ask my mentors for water. Jewel told me that I had sponsors. But doing that would be tantamount to telling Tyson that my strategy failed. I'm not quite desperate to do that yet. Imagining the hidden smirk and cutting remarks that Tyson would say if I had to tell him he was right pushes me onward. Thresh follows doggedly behind, but he has slowed down somewhat from yesterday's fast lope. By the time the sun begins to descend in the west, I have to stop due to fatigue. I sink down in the grass and try to catch my breath.
Another hour and a half of slow walking and there's nothing. I hate to do it, but I know that the alternative is death. "Need some water here," I say into thin air, trying to sound jovial, as if the situation isn't about self-preservation. I blanch inwardly at the sound of my voice; it's scratchy, little more than a weak croak, as if I haven't talked in several years. We continue to wend our way haphazardly through the grasses for a few minutes before I catch the glint of a hovercraft near me. Somehow I know that, even though he was sarcastic with me, Tyson would do his best to keep me alive. I eagerly catch the parachute that the hovercraft drops, and the craft quickly disappears. The parachute is tiny; I wonder just how much water he was able to secure for us. I open it, expecting to find a small water bottle or something. To my shock and anger, I find a small bottle labeled with the word "Iodine".
It must be some sick joke or something. Iodine? I need water. I raise my face to the sky, my mouth opening to scream some curses at Tyson, when I remember something I've read about in a wilderness survival book. Iodine ... it purifies water. If he decided to give me a gift of iodine when I asked for water, it could only mean one thing: I need iodine more than I need water. It follows that there is water nearby. Reinvigorated by hope, I press onward.
I sight the edge of the vast field of grass 20 minutes later. I'm so weak that, in good condition, I could have made the trip in 5, but it gives me satisfaction nonetheless. The anthem plays as we burst out of the grass on to level ground, and I sigh in relief, brushing the last bits of grass off on to the earth. The picture of the girl from District 8 lights up the sky for a few seconds, then disappears. Idly I wonder how she managed to survive past the bloodbath as she seemed rather dim-witted at the interviews, the reapings and in training, but I don't dwell on it for long because I notice my salvation in a narrow depression in the earth a few hundred yards away. It's water!
There are trees nearby as well which have large leaves that are ideal for holding the water. I mentally thank Tyson for the iodine and put a few drops of it into the water we've gathered. The next few minutes of waiting are the worst, but I get through them, and after a while we drink. It is a heavenly feeling, one that only a person with great thirst knows. Water is, in that moment, the most delicious thing I've ever tasted.
After quenching my thirst, I go back to the trees to make a better bandage for Thresh's wound. It's already begun to scab over, but better safe than sorry. Carefully I remove the discolored bandage from his hand and bind a new poultice of leaves to the limb with some fallen grasses.
"Want to risk a fire," I ask him. "I don't think that there's many people around. And if there are, we're both in pretty good condition to take them on."
"how," he asks.
"Get some of that grass ready. We need lots of fuel."
I strike the rock that Thresh normally wields with my spear for a few seconds. Finally, I notice a small spark. I begin to exhale slowly on the spark until it expands into a small flame and grab some of the kindling Thresh has gotten, adding it slowly to the fire, hoping that I don't accidentally smother it. After a while the pleasant sound of crackling wood soothes my ears, and I stop adding fuel. I tell Thresh that I'll wake him up for the second watch in four hours, and he promptly falls asleep.
I stare out at the unexplored land in front of us. It's another field, full of plants that look like wheat, in neat rows. I realize that the presence of the field was no accident of the game makers; Thresh, coming from district 11, probably knows all about the best ways to harvest wheat and turn it into something edible. I hear the distant sound of nocturnal animals; I may be able to kill some with my spear to add some meat to our diet. The knowledge that food is available reassures me. Maybe I actually have a chance.
Though I attempt to remain alert, the events of the day begin to take their toll. I've experienced the full range of emotions, from the resignation of dying due to dehydration to the fear of death from a fox mutt. My eyes become heavier and heavier until they close entirely. My head begins to loll to the left toward a nearby tree that is just inviting me to fall asleep against it. Annoyed, I jerk my body back to the right and force my eyes open. There's still at least an hour left before I can wake Thresh. I attempt to keep myself alert by counting the wheat plants but realize quickly that the rows all have the same number of plants in them, which means I can just count the rows and multiply. There appear to be 322 plants. 322 plants. Why not 321 plants? That would sound more interesting. Like a countdown. Down. Lay down. ...
I sense a presence beside me. Groggily I wonder how I missed it; I was supposed to be on sentry duty, right? Then I realize that I was caught napping. My head is resting comfortably against the tree, and my eyes fly open to reveal a serrated steel knife pointed right at them.