My evil plan succeeded. All people who reviewed chapter nine (Which was just one person) totally didn't see my "mutt" coming! :D
You'd be prepared because I have lots of stuff up my sleeve, and this is NOTHING compared to what is coming!
Disclaimer: *Shakes Magic 8 Ball* Do I own the rights to PJO and THG?
*No. Try again later.*
Fieldhockeyisamazin, I can't send you a sneak peek of the chapter because you're not a registered user, but this chapter is super early and the longest one yet!
Lots of dialogue in this chapter. Just a heads up :D
(I almost forgot. We're back to Elijah's POV!)
My sister goes back into the tent and I can hear her snoring in minutes. I take this time that I have alone to think about what's happening. My sister just fought a monster in the arena, and she had to use my sword. Why couldn't she have used her spear? This is one of the things I will never understand about demigods. I'm not really supposed to know about Elise, but I had to get an explanation where Elise was going every summer. Tons of other questions like these swam around in my head.
I grab one of our warm coats and wrap myself in it, and try and stay awake. I'm exhausted. Today was such a big day, and I'm lucky I'm still alive. After about a half an hour of staring at the coals, I drift into a light sleep.
"Elijah, get up, NOW!" Elise yells into my ear at what seems like minutes later. Crystal, Fish, Sadie, and Yael are quickly packing up camp. She quickly explains about how she thinks someone's going to attack the camp, and we need to pack up. I don't really get what she's saying because I am half asleep, and I got barely five hours of sleep last night.
The sun is creeping up over the horizon and it would've been pretty if I knew that I was probably going to die and Elise wasn't rushing us to pick up.
"Why should we trust you?" Asks Fish.
"Because I know stuff," Elise says. "Plus, it's not safe to stay somewhere more than a night.
I then find myself climbing a tree with my sword and breakfast.
"I'm sure they're coming. I did some exploring yesterday, and I know that the ladies from 6 and 7 are coming. They're going to raid our camp thinking we're still asleep.
I don't know how Elise knows, but after fifteen minutes of us sitting 20 feet high in a tree, we hear some talking. Sadie puts a finger over her mouth, and then raises her axe, ready to throw it down at anyone who comes near us.
Our plan was to pack up our stuff, and keep it in a pile down at the bottom of the tree. We would bring all our weapons up to the tree and eat breakfast there, ready to throw our weapons down at anyone who comes near us.
"How do you know they're somewhere near here?" a female voice says.
Another one says, "Because. They're the Careers. They saw which way we went at the fight at the Cornucopia, and then probably followed us so they could knock us out of the way. But we're smart and we're taking care of five people at once!"
"Without Nevan or Yael? I think that Nevan died last night. His face was in the sky!" replies the first one.
"Alana-" says the other one, whom I recognize as the District 6 girl. They've stumbled upon our camp and are now looking around.
"It's like another Cornucopia!" says Alana.
"Do you think that the game makers put it here on purpose?" says the District 6 girl.
They've been caught off guard and Sadie yells, "Now!" and moments later the District 6 girl gets an axe in her chest, thrown down by Sadie. She falls and is dead before she hits the ground, and a cannon goes off.
Alana looks around and finally looks up, only to have an arrow pierce her forehead, and she drops down screaming. She finally stops and is still. She is dead too, and her cannon goes off as well.
"Eleven of us left," Fish says as we climb down the tree and get our stuff. We all take a portion of the stuff we have, and start off hiking towards the desert. Crystal's logic is that if we keep walking, we'll find a source of water, maybe after the desert.
"Everywhere looks bone dry except for the salt water at the Cornucopia. From what I've seen, there isn't any normal animals here, just mutts, and normal animals would need water to survive," she says.
"I love how we're all logical with making all these guesses," I say.
"It's a good thing to think with logic in the arena, because most of the time, it's what happens. People are too desperate to stay alive to think about if they're being tracked or not," she retorts.
We come up to the sharp line that is the border between the woods and the desert. Elise groans. "Be prepared to go through some serious shock."
"Is that why you were so weird yesterday? Did you check out some of the arena?" asks Sadie.
"Yes, I did," says Elise. I can tell by the look on her face that she's not going to tell the whole truth. "I looked around and I came across the desert, so I decided to see what was after the desert."
"I told you, it was snowy hills," Yael says.
"Well, I wanted to check out your little allies to see what they were up to. That's how I knew that they were going to attack us. They were talking about us. I was spying on them," Elise blurts out. Maybe she is going to tell us everything, because by the looks on her face, she's telling the truth.
"That makes sense. Poor you. Went two miles, and went through serious shock. It's a nuisance going back and forth between the land," Yael says.
We keep walking through the blazing hot desert. It feels as if my insides are being microwaved. I feel deep sympathy for Elise, who is doing this the second time in twelve hours. She takes a sip from the water bottle I gave her last night and smiles.
It's just water, isn't it? She's treating it like it's a chocolate milk shake or something.
"Oh my gosh, is that water?" asks Sadie, pointing at Elise's water bottle.
"Uh . ." She stammers.
"Can I have some? I'm parched," she says. Elise becomes wide eyed, like Sadie will blow up or something if she drank from it.
"Uh, no. We're running low on water supplies," Elise says, now sweating, and looking like she's coming up with an excuse.
"Well, why do you get to?" Sadie asks. It's a freaking sip of water, Sadie! Chill out!
"Because my body doesn't necessarily agree with going through major shock in twelve hours!" Elise says. Now that I look closely, she does look kind of green.
Nothing interesting happens next except for we hit the distinct border of the desert and the snowy hills.
"Wait," Elise says just as I'm about to cross the border, desperate to get the feeling of my insides boiling out. "Put on the jackets now. It will reduce the shock you get." She takes the giant backpacking pack she has and takes five inky black coats out, and hands them out.
"Here, I'll just use a sleeping bag," Yael says. She digs into her pack, and takes one of our jet black sleeping bags out and wraps herself up in it, and takes her pack up.
My insides are just about cooked until I step over the border and I swear my sweat turns into ice. I kind of get dizzy as my body goes into shock, and I really sympathize with Elise, who was just in a black t-shirt.
The jackets really help, but that doesn't stop my legs from being cold. I pray a silent thank-you to the game makers for giving us shin-high black boots that are perfect for walking around in the snow with.
We keep on walking silently, and I find myself in the back of the pack with Elise. Everyone else is ten yards ahead of us, and it doesn't seem like they notice us at all.
"Elise, why did you freak out about that water bottle?" I ask.
"Elijah, where did you get it?" She's dead serious and has to know right now.
"Answer my question," I say.
"I'm not joking, you have to answer mine first," she says.
"It fell from the sky in a silver parachute. While you were out, I was keeping guard with Yael, and next thing I know, there it is."
"That was probably a gift from a sponsor," Elise says. "If people pay the Capitol money, then they can send us gifts while we're in the Arena."
"So, I was wondering why a sponsor had sent you water when we already had enough to last us another day. I was going to take a sip, but when you came back from fighting that mo- I mean, mutt, I gave it to you."
Elise sighs in relief. "Okay, no matter what you do, never drink from this water bottle." She leans in and whispers, "It has something to do with dad. Only my crowd can drink it, and if anyone else does then they spontaneously combust."
Hopefully nobody heard that. I kind of got it, but still, we don't want to take any chances.
The hills never seem to end. Halfway through walking across them, it starts to snow, and this adds to the fact that it seems like it'll never end.
After what seems like years of walking, we see blue in the distance. As we get closer, we see that this blue is water. There is 100 yards of beach, and then bright blue water shining under the sun.
We don't say anything, and are silent until we reach the border of the snowy hills and the beach. "Do you think this is the last section of the arena?" asks Elijah. We cross the border, and take off our coats.
Fish and Sadie look like they're in heaven. It's water everywhere unless you look behind yourself. Then there's just depressing snowy hills, and we're not going to think about that now.
Elise takes off her boots and socks, and takes a rock. She goes and stands ankle deep, and then throws the rock as hard and as far as she possibly can. It looks like it went about 50 yards, and then we hear a ZZAP!
"What was that?" asks Yael. Unexpectedly, we hear another cannon shot. Another tribute is dead.
"Ten left," Crystal mumbles.
"Still, what the heck was that zappy sound?" asks Yael.
"I think that was the electric field surrounding the arena. They had those everywhere at the training center, I'm not surprised that it's here in the arena," says Fish.
"You sound like someone from District 3!" Crystal says.
"Guys, this is freshwater," Sadie says. She frowns a bit and says, "It's not poisonous, but it looks like . . filtered water." That's weird. We all take our water bottles and empty them and replace them with the magical filtered water.
I pull a fast one and say, "Because the Capitol is obviously here for the comfort and safety of their tributes." I know full well the crew is editing me out, probably showing someone different. This doesn't stop everybody from laughing. We need a good laugh. It's tense here in the arena.
We set up camp right here on the beach, and pull out some lunch of assorted fruits and veggies. We actually have some fun and laughs, which I'd never thought we'd have in the Arena. It's kind of weird.
Stay strong. Says a voice inside my head.
At the time, I didn't really know why there was just two words inside my head. I didn't know what that meant, but it was going to mean lots of pain, surprise, and anxiety for both my sister and I, and it almost causes both of us to get killed in a nasty and painful way that I really don't want to talk about now. Frankly, I don't feel like getting depressed and I'm sure you don't either.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We should just enjoy the fact that both Elise and I are safe. Well, we're safe temporarily. You can never be truly safe in the Arena.
Congratulations to me. Minus the A/Ns, this chapter is 2,015 words. Happy Superbowl. Your present: a super super super super long chapter that's super early.
PLEASE REVIEW!