After he killed Jasmine, Julius was on the move. He crashed through the bog nosily, his boots splashing in puddles. I crawled up to the point where I knew I couldn't crawl anymore. A large, oval shaped swamp opened up before my eyes once I made it through the thickest of the undergrowth. The water that made up the shallow swamp was an unhealthy looking green color, bubbles occasionally floating to the surface. It also stank of decay, indicating to me that it would not be a good idea to go for a swim.
"Where are you, Poison Girl?" Sang Julius, sounding distant. He wasn't very good at tracking. "Come out, come out wherever you are!"
No, thanks, I thought to myself bitterly, chewing on the inside of my cheek in thought. He sounded far enough away, so that if I decided to run, he probably wouldn't be able to catch up with me in time. I wasn't going to risk my chances in the water, so running was my only option. I was quick, lithe, and agile. I was trained by the Shadow of District 7 himself.
iThere is no shame in running, Ivy./i Said Zander's voice as it invaded my thoughts. I whispered these words like a prayer a couple of times before I got to my feet, wincing as my boots sank into the mud with a loud slurping sound. Julius's clumsy footfalls paused, a heavy silence blanketing the marsh.
"I think I found you, Poison Girl," came Julius's snake-like hiss through the reeds.
It was now or never. I had to run. I gulped in one last breath of murky swamp air and squared my shoulders. Somewhere in the darkness, Julius laughed.
"You think you're special, don't you, Poison Girl?" He snarled in a voice filled with hate so strong that it was almost tangible. "Just because your mentor is Zander Quince doesn't mean anything."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, I felt my lips lift in the smallest of smiles. The rest of Panem had been in quite the uproar since Zander, my mentor, won the Games four years ago. He, like me, was eighteen at the time. I remember being at the ceremony in the middle of town, the giant trees making me feel insignificant and very small. My sister, who was only a year younger than me, stood at my side.
I was so afraid that either she or I would have our names Reaped. So scared that I almost threw up on the girl standing in front of me. Relief and a little bit of dread came in the forms of Mira Fersae and Zander Quince, the Tributes selected for the 56th Hunger Games. Both my sister and I turned to look at Mira, who was only a row behind us. Our eyes met and she looked as if she wanted to cry.
Zander stepped forward without so much as a blink, stoic as ever. I'd seen him around, working with his father to provide for his massive family. He was tall and muscular in the way a mountain lion was, with thick and somewhat long black hair that fell into his golden eyes.
Mira was the eighteenth Tribute to die. Zander won using nothing but a few throwing knives and his ability to stay hidden. That earned him fame, fortune, and the title of the Shadow of District 7.
But, I was not Zander. I was Ivy Caraway. And, if I wanted to live past the first night, I'd have to get away from Julius as fast as my legs would carry me. Julius started to say something, but I would never know what it was because I was running headlong through the bog. I wasn't worried about stealth anymore. I was just worried about staying out of range of whatever Julius might have had to throw at me.
My boots were reluctant to let me leave. They stuck to the mud and tripped on the thick roots of the trees, almost sending me flying face-first into the ground. Even so, I pressed onward into the green darkness and as I went, the foliage got thicker. Branches dug into my arms as I fought my way through, leaving me with dozens of fresh cuts.
Behind me, there was only silence. No Julius following in my footsteps, calling out my name. I wanted to believe that he was gone, that he had given up on me. But, that would be a foolish thing to do. Just because something was out of sight didn't mean it was gone, as Zander said. My guard still kept firmly up, I slowed my pace a little, sucking precious oxygen into my burning lungs. When I breathed in, the air tasted of mud, moisture, and decay.
I looked down at my clothes, noticing for the first time just how muddy and torn up they were. My pants, black and baggy and hanging off my hips, were covered in mud, specks of dried blood mingling here and there. My boots were still intact, although barely recognizable because they'd been sloshing through a bog, and my shirt, a simple black sleeveless garment, was torn in more than a few places.
The state of my clothes seemed trivial to the burning in my throat from lack of clean drinking water. I wasn't really hungry because I'd eaten a strip of smoked, utterly dry pork a few hours ago that I'd found in my pack, which was slung haphazardly over my shoulder. For some reason, my pack didn't have any water in it. Only an empty canteen, some stale bread, and a few strips of pork.
The irony of my situation didn't escape me, however. I had ran to a place full of water, water that was probably poisoned with a toxin the scientists at the Capitol had come up with, therefore making it undrinkable. The Gamemakers planned on this, the sadistic bastards. I walked on through the marsh feeling spited and very, very angry. I lashed out at the vines hanging from the trees with my hatchet, all the while trying to stay focused on watching for Julius to reappear again.
"I hope you people at home are happy," I mumbled, my tongue thick. I knew there had to be cameras pointed at me, waiting for something to happen. I thought of my sister and my parents, how they were watching me on our television in our small wooden home. My stomach lurched as memories of them flooded my brain. I hadn't seen them in weeks.
Something wet streaked down my grimy cheek just then. Startled, I looked up to the sky, or what I could see of it. Darkness, branches of trees outlined against the green tinted sky. No rain. Then where was that water coming from? I swiped my thumb across my cheek as more tiny drops came dribbling down. That's not rain, Ivy, I told myself. You're crying when you shouldn't be. You are in an arena with seventeen other people that want to kill you. Stop crying, it isn't worth it. Tears aren't going to help you get away from Julius or win the Games.
I sniffed loudly and wiped the rest of the tears from my eyes, clenching the hatchet with newfound resolve. I quickly erased any lingering thoughts about my family and replaced them with more practical ones. Like Julius and finding a clean water source. I scanned the horizon, looking for a body of water that didn't look like it had a decade's worth of mold growing in it. There was nothing. Just the same bog I'd been inhabiting for the last ten hours.
I had to stop myself from throwing my hatchet in a rather large puddle out of frustration. I was going to die of thirst if Julius didn't get to me first.
"It's okay, I'm going to be fine." I breathed in deep through my nose and exhaled through my mouth, shaking my arms in an attempt to release all the tension that was building in my shoulders. If I had learned anything from the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, it was that chaos solved nothing. It only made things worse. I needed to be calm.
After taking a few moments to recuperate, I decided I was ready to start moving again. I didn't know where I was going, and frankly, I didn't care. I needed to put as much distance between Julius and I as the arena would allow. I passed through acres of marshlands, wading through muddy water that reached my stomach, all because I didn't want Julius to catch me. It seemed like a lot of work just to evade one person.
And, on top of that, I had the other Tributes to worry about as well.
I walked and walked until I couldn't feel my feet anymore, and still no sign of my Career friend. Naturally, I was suspicious. He couldn't have just...disappeared, could he? No, Julius's focus was more in brute strength than stealth. He just...vanished and it didn't make sense.
I shoved Julius away from my thoughts as I settled down on a log a ways away from the moss I'd been sleeping on when he found me. The muscles in my legs tingled sharply as blood rushed through them. Everything was quiet, save for the monotonous croak of a frog. Or, it could have been a frog. It might have been a mutt with razor sharp teeth and the ability to hop fifty feet in one bound.
Needless to say, I hoped it was just a frog.
Sleep threatened to overwhelm me only minutes after happening upon the log. My eyelids were heavy and the delicious shadows of sleep ringed the corners of my eyes like a fog. I forced myself out of a drifting state more than a few times, each time checking to see if the hatchet still laid at my side. It was, of course, stained with Sylvan's and the girl from District 1's blood.
It might have just been the sleep deprivation clouding my judgement and train of thought, but I couldn't find a single shred of remorse in my body for killing them. The Games were realer now than they ever were to me as I sat alone on the log. I didn't like killing people. I was simply gaining an unhealthy tolerance for it. Already. On the first night. There was something wrong with that, I thought vaguely. I was so tired, I could barely see straight, let alone think clearly.
It was a good thing that I didn't need to see or think to feel the cold tip of a knife biting into the skin of my throat.
"Hey there, Ivy," Julius hissed in my ear, pressing the knife even harder into my flesh. I sat completely still, scarcely breathing. "You thought I disappeared on you, didn't you?"
"Not at all," I replied hoarsely, feeling my esophagus move underneath the blade as I spoke. "I was just waiting for you to come back."
With that, I slammed my elbow into his stomach. Julius made a dry grunting sound before stumbling backwards, giving me enough time to throw myself onto the ground, grabbing my hatchet in the process. Unfortunately, Julius didn't give me much time to plan my attack, because he recovered quickly and jumped over the log, diving at me with fingers splayed.
Before he could tackle me, I brought the hatchet back so that it aligned with my ear, and swung.