Sorry it's been so long, I've been out of the country for a few weeks. I hope you guys enjoy!
When I finally stumbled out of the tunnels onto open land, I was surprised at what I saw. Outside was so very different than the arena I had entered, I wondered if I had actually escaped the arena itself and was outside the game – but I knew that was impossible. Rather than stone and high walls, it was an unruly forest. Directly in front of me there was a rocky, shamble-covered hill that led down to tall green trees that stretched up over a hundred feet into the air. Their leaves were the dark green of heavy summer, some of the leaves curling at the edges from the heat and lack of water.
That was not all there was, though. If I looked to my left, around the curve of the Colosseum, the trees turned from the dark green to shades of red, orange, and yellow. Crisp breezes set those leaves to rustling and I caught the scent of fall on the breeze. When I turned right, the dark green of the summer trees gave way to a bright, lime green of new leaves, and the trees were dotted with huge pink and white blossoms. I supposed the quadrant of the arena that I couldn't see was the representation of winter, the fourth season.
My heart hammered in my chest. The forest stretched as far as the eye could see... how on earth was I supposed to find Ash and the others? And worse... what if they were lying dead in the Colosseum behind me?
I tried to calm myself and think. If Ash thought I was still alive, where would he have directed the others to go? Where would he think I would go? And where would he go? I had to figure out which of the four quadrants was my best chance.
Nothing came to mind. I decided to walk around the Colosseum, to see if I could find where they would have exited. I curved to the right, walking towards the spring section. It was treacherous to walk along the loose shambles at the top of the hill on which the Colosseum perched, but I didn't watch my feet – I watched everywhere but. I watched the walls and my surroundings, the forest below and the shambles around me. I was painfully aware of how much I was standing in the open, but I couldn't do this from the ground.
I stopped when I stepped in something that squished around my boot. I felt a retching feeling develop in my throat and I looked down slowly, staring first at the puddle of blood I had stepped in, and then the dead body twenty meters away. I fought the urge to throw up, pressing my fist to my mouth and swallowing hard.
The body was mangled almost beyond recognition. Blood matted its armor, face, and hair. The rocks in front of me were thrown in wild patterns and the blood was heavy there, showing me that the body had obviously fallen. I looked up slowly and saw a rope hanging overhead, that they had obviously been using to climb down the wall. I also saw that it had been cut with a knife about a hundred feet off the ground.
I gagged again, and forced myself to look at the body. Whoever it was had been alive when they hit the ground, and they had dragged themselves a few feet before falling several meters down the rocky terrain. Then, someone had caught up with them and planted a knife in their back.
I stared at the armor, trying to make out the color and determine what district the tribute was from. Their armor wasa dark, golden shade of yellow, which was the armor from District 8. I took a deep, shuddering breath, suddenly feeling less nauseous. I didn't know anyone from District 8.
I looked back at the wall, trying to determine if this was where Ash and the others had left the Colosseum – assuming that they had. The rope overhead was ruddy, though, not sand colored. At least, I hoped the rope was actually a different color and not just soaked in blood. I decided to keep walking.
The fourth quadrant of the arena finally came into view. The buffer between the winter and the spring section was a series of trees that were bare of leaves, and then it gave way to a sparkling winter-filled forest. The snow crept up the stony hill and near the top, the snow had melted leaving behind some mud and wet stones. There were several footprints in the snow going down the hill, and many of them were small – children's footprints. I glanced up and, sure enough, I saw a sandy colored rope draped over the edge of the wall.
I looked down the snowy hill and a few bright red splotches of blood glowed in the afternoon sun. Afternoon? Had I really been down there so long? I suppose the answer was a yes. I staggered down the snow-covered hill, following the scattered footprints and crossing my fingers, hoping that the blood didn't belong to one of mine.
When I reached the bottom of the hill, the temperature felt like it had dropped fifty degrees, from near 80 degrees all the way down to about 30. I shivered slightly and rubbed my face with my gloved hands, hoping that my armor would keep me warm enough.
I wished desperately that something from the Cornucopia had fallen into the pit with me, so that I would have something – anything – with me. My mouth was dry and my lips were beginning to crack, and my stomach rumbled slightly. I felt horribly naked, without a single weapon to hold onto.
I walked through the winter wonderland until I couldn't see the Colosseum through the trees behind me, and then I stopped. I picked up a handful of snow and put it in my mouth, letting it melt and run in cold rivulets down the back of my throat. I knew it wasn't smart to do that, and that it would steal some of my body warmth, but I was thirsty... and I wasn't that cold.
I continued walking. The snow crunched under my boots no matter how quietly I tried to walk. The trail ahead of me that had been carved by my friends (or at least, I hoped) was so blatantly obvious that I worried someone else would get to them before I could. I pushed the thought from my mind; no one would have PICKED the winter quadrant. That's probably why my friends went for it. Everyone would have gone for the fall or the spring quadrant, where it was the ideal temperature and they would have plenty of leaf-cover.
My feet began to feel heavy, and the armor clanked with every step I took. The steps began to blend together, and for a while there were only a few things: the footprints in the snow in front of me, the crunch of the snow underfoot, and the cool air whipping around my ears. I let my other senses fade away, focusing only on sound. If I heard something out of the normal, it would be my first indication of anything else.
That's how it came to pass that I walked for hours without even really noticing how much time had passed. It was only when I realized the snow in front of me was cast in shades of pink and orange that I looked up and saw the sunset.
It was a truly magnificent sunset, which was all the more insulting – that we should see this beautiful thing while we were trapped, fighting our friends to the death. It mangled the sunset; it made it seem darker. It made the reds seem like they were bloody; the oranges reminded me of the rust-colored rope; the pink reminded me of my mother's face when she cried. This beautiful sight suddenly made me sick, as though it was a hideous mutilation of the sunsets I used to see at home. I remembered the sunsets that cast the primrose bushes in beautiful colors, and danced on the water, and all the times Dad painted them on canvas and on cake.
He always loved the colors.
I grimaced and fixed my eyes on my shoes. One foot after the other; just ignore the colors. I kept walking until the snow in front of me finally turned a rich blue-purple in the twilight, and I released tension in my shoulders that I didn't know I had been keeping. The blue-purple continued to darken, but the moon soon rose and illuminated the forest in ghostly shades of blue and silver.
A voice boomed overhead and my head snapped upright. I stared up at the sky, and a face flickered into view. It was the face of Nero, the announcer. Kit sat in a chair off to his side, and I just saw the slightest glimpse of her hair.
"Hello, tributes and citizens of Panem!" His voice seemed to come from every direction, making me look for speakers hidden in the trees. "I hope you have all enjoyed the first few hours of the first Graveyard Games!"
I snorted, glowering up at his face. I hadn't really hated him before, but now I really, really hated him.
"It is time to see why this game is called the Graveyard Games, and review the deaths so far today," Nero continued. "There have been several, I must say. Tributes, please look around you."
I looked away from his face, and was surprised to see that the scenery around me had changed. The trees were still all in the same places, and there was still snow. Nothing was missing, but something had been added.
My stomach sank into my feet as I stared around me, at the cold stony graves that had risen from the ground. I swallowed hard, counting the headstones.
There were 51.
Some were blank, some were not.
I closed my eyes briefly, wondering if I had the strength to read the names on the headstones and potentially see Ash's name on one of them – or Ty's, for that matter.
The fact that there were 51 headstones was a brutal reminder that we would have 51 headstones filled before one of us left the arena. It was a reminder that this was a graveyard; that soon the blood of 51 kids – KIDS – would water these trees. It was the reminder that no matter how many people might be moving and breathing in this arena, 51 of them were already as good as dead.
I took a deep breath, and walked to the nearest headstone.