With thanks to Katrace and Glassgift for your reviews of the last chapter.

Y 184-09-01 T 13:07:21

Day 2

The sun was hot in the sky, unrelenting in its midday position for hours now. Quint walked on beneath the boiling light, through miles of city streets. The Inner City was monolithic marble, and the Outer City was a land of glass skyscrapers and glittering lights, but just beyond that- there was a utilitarian mess of buildings, squat and whitewashed, creating a labyrinthine mess of streets. Quint couldn't decide what these ugly, prefabricated buildings could be in the face of the relative beauty of the rest of the Capitol. At first he considered them to potentially be remnants of military outposts, perhaps from the city's founding, or the Dark Days- but they were flimsy, and looked like they wouldn't be able to stand up to any attack.

Quint navigated through streets and past buildings- he knew he wanted to head northwest, to the reservoir, but two things hindered him. Without a line of sight to the reservoir itself, he had little means of finding his way through the streets, and any attempts to use the sun as a crude navigational tool would fall apart, as the sun had hovered overhead for hours now. As such, he walked in frustrating loops through the strange, ugly streets, made of tiny alleyways instead of wide streets. It was incongruous to the rest of the city, and it was beginning to unnerve him.

Finally, he reached an impasse- the alleyways had run out, and short, whitewashed buildings surrounded him, dark doors with numbers painted on them hemming him in on all sides. Quint gritted his teeth. With the unusual buildings surrounding him, numbered and cheaply built, he had wanted to leave navigation through the buildings as a last resort; but he had nothing left to do, if he wanted to drink anything today. Hitching his makeshift backpack, rubbing his thumb over the shaft of his spear, Quint pushed open the door with a whitewashed '3010' peeling from its plywood, and walked into the dark buildings.

The rooms were stark and utilitarian, and as a District 6 citizen that was saying something. Quint was poor, and he had provided for two on a single train mechanic's salary, but even he had owned a lightbulb, a basin, utilitarian plumbing. The basic necessities of living in a city district he had managed to supply for himself. But here- there was nothing. A small cot bed sat in the corner, a thin cotton sheet laid on top neatly. A box shelf was nailed to the wall. Nothing else was in the room. After a week of overwhelming, omnipresent decadence, it had normalised itself to Quint- the stark difference in these cheaply built, concrete-floored, empty buildings was profound, chilling. Quint held his spear a little tighter in his hand as he walked through the empty, lightless rooms.

Corridors and halls of bare concrete, and Quint found that now he could pick out cameras without having to look for them amongst the veneer of luxury that covered them up. Black mirrors reflected his distorted image back at him as he walked, tiny black eyes watching him like a thousand crawling insects. His footsteps echoed on the concrete.

He stopped, breathing in heavily, considering whether to take the stairs and find a vantage point or just try to exit the building quickly.

Footsteps still echoed on the concrete.

Quint's breath hitched in his throat, and he turned, turned again, his spear raised and his eyes wide as he tried to locate the sounds of movement echoing on the sound-amplifying surfaces. His heartbeat, however, was starting to drown out the sounds, and he couldn't make out the sound's origin over the increasing drumbeat of his chest, roaring blood in his ears. He turned, turned again.

And it was now that Quint heard the multiple sounds, the huffs of breath, eyes glinting under a single bare bulb.

And he realised the sounds were not human.

He stood still, his eyes wide, and he forced his lungs to still. His heartbeat still roared in his ears, but there was nothing he could do about that. He could hear a scraping of claws now on the concrete floor, and he itched to move the spear in his hand, to run, but he stayed still. Think, Quint. That's what you do.

It was rare, but sometimes packs of wolves found their way into District 6 through the train tracks. Peacekeepers wouldn't bother with them until they came close to their own living quarters, so occasionally Quint had banded together with the citizens of his district to drive out the wolves. And while whatever in this hallway would be something twisted of the Capitol's making, it would still be an animal, and he still had a spear.

The cardinal rule was not to run. Whatever he did, he could not run. Putting his back to a predator was tantamount to admitting he was prey, and if he couldn't outrun a wolf he certainly couldn't outrun whatever was hiding just within the shadows. He had seen too many mutts in the Games, and they were always the nightmares of the Capitol's twisted mind.

Next was to consolidate what he had to face. His eyes were gradually accommodating to the darkness, and he could make out shadows on his left, several dark shapes that came up to just below his waist. The mutts were lupine in figure, but they were hulking messes of muscle, too dangerous to be natural. Their teeth were sharp, white, too large to be natural. They were dark-furred, but their eyes- their eyes were all white but for a tiny pinprick of black in the centre. The effect was terrifying.

But it meant they couldn't change their pupils to adjust to bright light. And Quint knew how to survive, but it was going to involve breaking the cardinal rule.

Fuck it, Quint thought as the largest mutt in front took a step forward. Rules are made to be broken. And in a single fluid movement, Quint swung his spear up and into the bare bulb over his head. Sparks flew, and as the mutts yelped and shied back from the exploding light Quint took to his feet and ran.

He had to get out of the building. He had bought himself precious seconds of time, but if they were mutts of the Capitol's creation then they would be aggressive and fast and baying for blood. He had to get into the sunlight, into an open space where he stood a chance against the mutts.

What's the matter, Gamemakers? He thought in the panicked recesses of his mind as he raced through concrete corridors. Was everything getting too dull for you? His crate was tied onto his back with rags, and the poor excuse for a backpack slammed against his spine with every panicked step, the rhythm to which his terrified body followed. He could find no light. He could find no exit.

Behind him, a howl, and then footsteps, close, closer now, too close. He turned, swinging his spear around with him, and by luck more than skill sliced a thin line across the closest mutt's face. Blood streamed and the mutt screamed and its eyes, all white with just a prick of pupil, were narrowed in unsullied bloodlust. Quint swung again, instinct controlling him, and then the mutt had a mutilated face and nothing left to see with. It slumped to the floor, dead before it hit the concrete ground. Quint took off, the remaining mutts snapping at his heels, white eyes shining in the meagre light of the empty buildings.

He turned and twisted through the corridored building. It had seemed so much smaller outside, but in here it was a hive, unending, an eternal cage. He swung again and again as the mutts came too close, but he wasn't as lucky twice, and the mutts just dodged back as his spear came spinning backwards. Quint bought time in split seconds now, a dance of sprints and swings of a spear as he raced both the mutts and his own navigational skills to reach an exit.

It was luck and not skill that brought him to a plywood door, and he crashed through it without regard for opening it first. Plywood split and fractured against the door jamb as he slammed it open, and then there was a wide street and sunlight and Quint could not see in the light. Thankfully, neither could the mutts spilling out into the sunlight, and while they could smell him they were slowed enough for Quint to pick a direction and run. His eyes adjusted, but theirs could not, and they were slow to follow, clumsy despite their terrifying strength and huge teeth and claws. Quint came to the end of the wide street and turned, and now he was on another street, one that held buildings on one side and a wide, glittering reservoir on the other. Quint felt a surge of possessive pride. The Capitol had not stopped him from making the water. They had not stopped him, and the mutts were slow and his eyes had adjusted now and there was blood on his spear and adrenaline in his body and god it felt good to fix things by blood as much as steel, to up his own odds by his own strength. He could not even hear the mutts now, they must have gotten distracted by something, they must-

"HELP!"

The call was instinctual, because no tribute in their right mind would scream for help. It was gutteral and loud, and now Quint could hear the howls of mutts on the chase.

Quint went cold.

They were his quarry to kill, and he had left them. He spun and sprinted, bloodied spear singing in his hands, his thirst and hunger all but forgotten in the baying of his mind for blood.

A tribute, small and thin, but otherwise impossible to discern behind the hulking bodies of the white-eyed mutts chasing them. In the light of day, Quint could see now that they were not purely lupine, not like the wolves he had imagined- their teeth were so large because they were not teeth, not really, they were blades. Someone had taken the muttations and literally, physically inserted into their gums blades for teeth. The mutts were bleeding, bloody foam at their mouth, because they were something that was not meant to be. Savage fury at the Capitol's nightmarish, cruel creation drew Quint's strength, and he slammed the spear into the side of a mutt hard enough to cut five inches into its side. The mutts were split now between him and the tribute, and Quint swung, blood staining the ground beneath his feet as he pushed his spear through the blade-festered mouth of the mutt closest to him. They were dying now, and Quint killed the last with a strength he had not realised he possessed, a passion he did not realise could come from killing, as he embedded the steel into the mutt's neck, down to the vertebrae.

There was silence and blood between Quint and the tribute. Quint panted heavily, his chest heaving, the roar of a different blood in his ears.

The tribute coughed awkwardly. "Thanks-"

And bloodlust exploded in Quint's mind and he lunged, embedding the spear into the tribute's side, his eyes wide and pupils pinpricked from savage, primal fury.

The tribute was almost silent this time as he gasped in pain. Quint's mind recoiled in horror as he stared at the tribute impaled on the end of his spear.

Oh God, he thought as the tribute started to collapse on the ground. Oh God, no.

When starting this SYOT, I had three big scenes in my head that I knew had to be in there. The Capitol being the arena was one. This is just starting the second. So I'm enjoying this a lot. I hope you are too.

Or- actually- probably not, right now.

In any case, this would have been published yesterday but for whatever reason the website was too slow to work on yesterday. Damn you, ff dot net. But anyway.

As ever, thank you for reading this far.