Embers of orange from the receding sun creep into the windows. The house is quiet. Mom and I eat in silence, choking down a few spoonfuls of stew. It tastes salty and settles sickeningly in the stomach. I can't get much of the chewy grain bread down either.
It's hard to move. My limbs throb with starvation, and still my appetite just refuses to quell this depression. I just want to stay home from school till it's over, unable to process the tormenting of my sister, forced to observe and endure it publicly. Being in public hasn't been my strongest suit lately.
A few days ago, I woke up in the school nurses office to dizzying assurances that Katniss had escaped the thrown blade, though she remained in the arena. Since then, I've watched her nearly thirst to death, only discovering water after certain heat stroke set in. Once she was rehydrated by a natural spring, the Gamemakers' drove her in a mad dash through the forest with a real firestorm. Given my sister's fire outfits; it was surely supposed to be a demented irony.
It should have been me in the arena all along.
More surprising than the tricks of the environment, Peeta had allied with the Career tributes, the ones who volunteer for the Games. He must have had some prearranged deal where he would help them track down and kill my sister, the highest rated tribute. Katniss knows of his betrayal though, because the group of them wandered right by the tree she was nestled in for the first night and she definitely noticed. The telling grin on her face when she climbed down the next morning insisted so. Katniss has received a lot of airtime.
Why would Peeta say that he was in love with Katniss but then join the most dangerous tributes and hunt her? Peeta already showed he was capable of killing other tributes. He had finished off a girl from District 8 that several other tributes wounded. It was confounding until I the rumors spreading around. Apparently, Peeta's fixation with my sister is stronger than a mere crush. He's protecting her by nesting with the lions in the arena.
Today, chores finished, Mom and I sit down in front of the tiny television. Verona, the girl from District 5, is putting the finishing touches on an ingenious crawlspace among a tangle of vines and bushes. Without watching Verona, I would think it impossible that anyone would hide in the mess. If she has one talent, it's problem solving.
She's not very interesting, though. Agreeing, the transmission jumps over to a boy from District 3, Teodor, who has spent the past few days digging up the landmines around each of the platforms. He reburied them around the supplies which the Careers had stacked near the lake. A time-lapse shot sped up to a dizzying rate shows the boy's inventive, hours-long effort in handful of seconds. I don't know if they can be rearmed but if the Gamemakers are replaying this compilation so many times, they must think he has managed that as well. No other tributes ever thought to retrieve the mines. Now, they stand guard, permitting the Careers to leave their supplies while hunting.
Katniss is a born scavenger. She probably won't need any of the provisions, although weapons would help. She only has the throwing knife since it stuck in her backpack. The frame splits into two shots. On the left side of the screen, the Careers and Peeta slowly stalk through the woods. Simultaneously, on the other side of the image, a shot displays Katniss exhausted and dozing after washing the burns she suffered fleeing the firestorm. I can see the Gamemakers slapping each other's backs and laughing, 'The girl on fire can burn after all!'
Even scalded, fatigued, and malnourished, Katniss is beautiful. The shot tightens on her and fills the right-side view. I can see the pin more clearly, now. Gale said it was a mockingjay and he told me the story about them that Dad used to tell us.
During the Dark Days, Capitol scientists took animals and spliced genes into their DNA to make them useful weapons, tools of war. They made all sorts of killer animals, but the ones that are still prevalent are the wasps called tracker jackers, whose sting can cause severe swelling and even psychosis. Ten stings are almost guaranteed to kill a fully grown human, and even if it doesn't kill him, the delusions are enough to drive him insane permanently.
However, the Capitol was more cunning with a new bird they created that became known as the 'Jabberjay'. The birds were capable of reproducing human speech with legendary exactness, even capable of mimicking vocal qualities unique to each person. The Capitol released thousands of the birds, exclusively of one gender to prevent breeding. The birds would listen to whole conversations between members of the rebellion and fly back to regurgitate their secrets to the Capitol's intelligence corps.
It was only a matter of time before the odd birds were noticed. Soon the rebels used them to feed fictitious plans and misinformation to the intelligence corps, frustrating and embarrassing the Capitol, who promptly canceled the Jabberjay program, keeping whatever birds that had returned. But some of the Jabberjays mated with wild mocking birds forming a new animal that hadn't existed before; the mockingjay. Even though mockingjays can't reproduce words, they love melodies and will sing any human song they like for hours, even long, complex pieces.
Gale says there are mockingjays all around District 12, as abundantly as any other bird. He also said that the pin with the mockingjay is something that Madge was wearing on Reaping Day. She must have given it to my sister before Katniss and Peeta left for the Capitol. The broadcasts attribute the unique adornment to Cinna, since he was "earth-shattering" in his designs for Katinss' fiery wardrobe. Apparently, the pin was becoming a trendy fashion statement and Cinna was currently the standard of all benchmarks in fashion. He is frequently mentioned with hail and praise whenever the 'girl on fire' costume is discussed.
On the screen, the image cuts away to the girl from District 11, her wispy form nearly like that of a bird, herself. She dances from branch to branch, only touching the ground when she prefers to. The cameras have found it quite a challenge tracking her passage around the forest. Right now, she's watching Katniss and I wonder if this tiny girl has the desperation in her to kill my sleeping sister.
I search my own heart, knowing there won't be any answers to find. There was no time to think about it when I was selected in the reaping, but since then I've wondered if I could kill someone. The truth is, I don't know. I doubt if I could. Katniss took that burden up for me. She hasn't killed anyone yet, spending the entire time looking for provisions or fleeing fire and the other tributes.
The label on the littler girl displays her name, Rue. She hops from one branch to the next, moving around the tree tops, looking between Katniss and a point elsewhere in the woods. The careers are still stalking. Then I understand.
Rue isn't thinking of killing Katniss. She's watching the Careers and Peeta as they close in on my sister's napping form. I didn't realize how close they were until now. My heart sinks and I huddle close to Mom, fearing this may be it for my sister, Katniss, who loved me enough to give away her life. Mom leans her head upon mine and whispers, "I know, Prim. I know." She's crying already.
Then something happens that I don't expect. Rue hops down to a lower branch and kicks it, shaking the leaves. The second shot cuts back to the close up of Katniss' face. She's already stirring, but the thrashing of leaves jolts her eyes open. She can hear the voices now; hear the Careers' snapping of twigs underfoot. Rue shakes the branch once more.
Katniss doesn't hesitate any longer. She scoops up her backpack and tears off in the direction opposite the approaching pack. As soon as the Careers spot her, they break into chase and little Rue flitters away into the branches, unnoticed. Again, her movements are too swift and clever for the cameras to follow, even aided by the tracker installed under each tribute's skin.
The action is after my sister now. Mom's hand and mine compete, knuckles white from squeezing all the blood out of our skin. On the screen, Katniss runs swiftly in the evening that falls a few hours after ours. She finds a tall tree and swings up into it, her teeth gnashing from the pain of burns on her palms.
By the time the Careers approach the tree, she's a several branches further up, outside of spear range, panic brushing her eyebrows. Then she smiles at the six tributes that have her trapped. "How's everything with you?" Her voice is suddenly carefree, like she just loves the games.
"Well, enough. Yourself?" One of the boys replies, his voice shockingly more adult than the age limitations ought to permit. That huge man from District 11 had a deeper voice though, so my mind is probably just searching for reasons to invalidate what it's being presented with.
Katniss teases them, "It's been a bit warm for my taste." She tilts her head cutely. "The air's better up here. Why don't you come on up?"
"Think I will." The label pointing to the adult/boy reads "2-B, Cato" an enormous career. And half crazed with intensity.
1-G, Glimmer offers something to Cato and the broadcast switches to another camera so it can be seen, a silver bow and arrow. My anxiety churns. If only Katniss had that and not them! Cato rejects the offer and insists he's a swordsman, tucking a long dagger tighter into his belt, where it has been secured.
He starts climbing after Katniss who moves higher into the branches until the short trees fall away and the screen is graced with a beautiful panorama. The passionate glow of the sun on the horizon blazes over the trees, like a golden inferno. Only a few trees near Katniss are higher than this and she stops climbing for a moment to glance down when Cato breaks a branch and plummets. He crashes through foliage howling words we don't use in the Everdeen house.
Mom and I allow ourselves to grin. By now Katniss is in the top third of the tree, on branches that don't look like they should be able to hold her slim form. Glimmer draws an arrow and it goes far wide of my sister. Katniss doesn't even flinch. The second silver shaft thunks into the trunk of the tree and a third misses worse than the first. Katniss pulls out the arrow and waves it, grinning. Glimmer gives up, spitting. Katniss is better than Glimmer with a bow. She's stuck in a tree though. There's no way out of this.
The Careers group up with Peeta and argue about how to take out this year's highest rated Hunger Games tribute. They have her cornered in the sky and they're not going to let this opportunity sweep past. None of them have a viable plan so Peeta suggests that they deal with it in the morning, because the light is failing and she can't escape if they make camp at the base of the tree. He knows he can't delay confrontation forever.
Katniss watches them settle in and shimmy's down to thicker branches, wincing with each grip. She picks a spot and prepares nightfall by withdrawing a sleeping bag from her backpack and crawling inside. She loops her belt around herself and the forked branch to prevent falling. The burn on her leg must be unbearable because she cuts a sliver in the bag and dangles her tender limb out in the air. There's some relief when she pours water on it, but burn pain returns immediately without actual pain killers. Her scowl darkens with the failing light and her jaw quivers.
Once lying back, she crams her backpack into the sleeping bag. Katniss takes in her surroundings. The light is fast dwindling, only those faint orange embers glowing pinkish through the green leaves. Then Katniss sees something in an adjacent tree. She stares intently, sitting up, silently.
At last, the Gamemakers switch to night mode. The light amplified shot exposes little Rue who warned my sister, her approach ignored by even the Gamemakers. Perhaps they see her as so elusive that she wasn't worth showing. But now Rue points to something above Katniss.
After a moment of confused staring, Katniss seems to understand. "What's she see, Mom?"
"I- I don't know, dear. It all looks the same to me."
Katniss seems to quickly make a decision. She crawls out of the bag and scampers up the branches faster than before. She takes a knife, the same knife that I thought had killed her and sets it against a branch. Then when the nightly Panem Anthem plays for the recap of any killed tributes that night, Katniss begins carving away on the branch, serrations in the blade making quick work of the moist wood. The broadcast finishes before she does and Katniss resigns back to her sleeping bag.
"I'm confused," Mom furrows her eyebrows. "What was she doing?"
"I have no idea." There must be a lot about the wild that we fenced-ins don't know about.
When Katniss gets back down to her perch, there's a sponsor's gift parachuted onto her sleeping bag, a tiny metal jar. She opens it and dabs her finger inside. Her jaws drops open and she whispers something, cradling the jar to her chest with joy. From inside the container, she applies a creamy ointment to her burns and moans gently in relief.
"That's expensive." I say, knowing that we can't afford any burn medicine quite so luxurious in our apothecary shop.
"Very, and the cost is probably some multiple to gift it in the Games," Mom agrees. "At least she has a lot of sponsors. I guess we can thank Peeta and Cinna for that."
"They like Katniss too, though. She got an eleven remember?"
Mom squeezes me. "Katniss is wonderful, isn't she?"
That leaves me feeling hollow inside again, not the sort of hollow that you feel when you can't get enough to eat. The kind when you want things to be different than they are and can't do anything about it. I didn't want to lose Katniss. I also didn't want to go to the Hunger Games. I tuck my feet onto the couch beside myself, trying to satisfy the wrench in my stomach by curling up.
You can't volunteer for someone who volunteered for you. It's a struggle deciding which is worse, to go myself and be dead already or to lose Katniss and have to live the rest of my life knowing that she died because of me. And I feel bad about thinking this feels worse than being in Katniss' place. I hate that this is all my fault.
But that's not true. She's stuck in a tree, alone, burned, terrified, drained, and feeling betrayed because the Capitol said one of us had to go. The Treaty of Treason is to blame!
Mom stands up to get some water and I stare entranced at the screen where they're showing shots of the tributes settling in for another night made artificially chilly by the Gamemakers. The boy from 3 has traversed a careful path inside the network of landmines, huddling under a stack of blankets for the night. Thresh from 11 is oblivious to the weather, sleeping sprawled under the tall, dry grasses of the sweeping meadow, impossible to see even ten yards away.
Then they return to the Careers, who have worked out a watch schedule. Peeta wasn't trusted with having a shift, given his profession of love for their prey, but he's awake anyway. His eyes stare distress in the camera's light-amplified image. His frown is contorted into hopelessness, dread, and sadness. Once they kill Katniss, they're going to kill him next and then what good will his efforts have been? The Gamemakers hold the shot of Peeta. Peeta stares back unblinking.
Mom and I try to get some sleep, taking turns comforting each other. We won't rest much tonight. Not with the Katniss, whom we've depended on for so long, in such a dire circumstance. An hour or so before dawn, we get up and look at the television. Nothing has changed except for which career has a waking shift. Glimmer, the girl from District 1, keeps nodding off. Peeta is still wide awake though, the same expression of worry plastered across his face.
I milk Lady and help mom clean the house and once the sun peeks over the horizon, I make my way to school. The electricity has been on for a few days now and everyone is keeping every light blazing, because we so rarely have power. The Seam is almost festive with dazzling lights, soon to be drowned out by the intensifying glow of morning.
My mind hardly acknowledges this environment until the second class when the televisions are turned on. The normal replay of the events from the last 24 hours should be up, except the Gamemakers have opted to skip that for now. Light is slowly beginning to wash out the darkness in the west. Katniss is applying more ointment to her burns, reddish spots already look fading. I'm astounded. If we had medicine like that in the apothecary shop, lives would literally be saved every year.
Katniss stows the sleeping bag into her backpack and eats a few morsels of rations, washing down the cracker and beef with purified water. She peers down at the Careers nestled at the base of the tree. Glimmer is fast asleep and so is everyone else, except Peeta, and he's not looking upward. Katniss still thinks he betrayed her.
Katniss whispers as loud as she dares, "Rue!" The tiny girl peeks out, alert as ever. Katniss brandishes her knife to the girl, not menacingly, rather in a sawing motion. Rue nods with understanding and heads away, bounding from branch to branch. Rue wasn't kidding when she said she's hard to catch. The cameras struggle to keep up with her until the Gamemakers decide her forest acrobatics aren't that important.
The shot shifts back to Katniss as she climbs back upward, to the branch she already gnawed away at with the blade. In the approaching gleam of morning, I can finally comprehend what the fuss is all about. A tracker jacker nest dangles from the branch; the distinct solid-gold bodies of the wasps are infamous in Panem, unmistakable.
Once Katniss begins to cut the branch the rest of the way, a few Tracker Jackers land on her, she flinches from the stings. Other kids in the class openly marvel at her bravery. A moment later, the branch snaps free and Katniss shoves it out from the trunk. Ages pass as it crashes to the ground, but when it does the results are exhilarating!
A swarm of tracker jackers erupt from the crushed nest! Pandemonium instantly overcomes the confused careers, trying to blink away fatigue, but only a few, including Peeta, have the enough sense to flee. The cameras follow their mindless flight through the forest, someone screaming, "To the lake!" over and over. My hands clench the edge of my desk. Other kids clap with excitement.
I want to see if Katniss is alright. The Careers howl frantically at the tracker jackers, swatting themselves. Glimmer slows her run and tries to beat the wasps out of the air with the bow. Bad move! She's overcome by venom almost immediately, crumpling to the ground, convulsing. A girl from District 4 stumbles slower and slower until she too finally collapses in a fit of seizures.
A split-screen finally opens up showing Katniss halfway down the tree and descending swiftly. The careers are in the other half of the image, more crazed with each sting. Katniss stumbles back the way she had fled the day before, back to the spring. She submerges herself momentarily, dazed, the delirious effects of tracker jacker poison filtering through her veins.
She examines the stings and I can see she's already pulled out the stingers, but the sites are swollen and leaking green pus. Katniss sits panting, but then her eyes snap open and she drags her uncooperative body to her feet. Faltering back through the brush, she reaches Glimmer just as the girl's implant notifies the Gamemakers that she has died, an indicator flashing up on the screen.
Glimmer had been gorgeous in the interviews. I remember her now that her body is a disfigured mass of green lesions. Katniss was only more captivating because she is my sister, and I guess, because Peeta drew attention to her with his forlorn affection. It's horrid what has become of Glimmer's body, now unrecognizable; a revolting pile of already rancid flesh. Katniss wastes no time and crushes the dead, swollen fingers with a rock until the bow comes loose and then she turns to the quiver of arrows.
Katniss tries to roll over the corpse, confusion from the stings plaguing her mind. In the second shot, I can see Peeta returning, brandishing a sword, Cato following about fifty or so yards behind him. "Go, Katniss. Run!" My whisper escapes my lips. Alabeth puts a hand on my desk, not say anything. What could she say? I'm watching my sister live every Panem kid's worst nightmare, all for me.
Katniss has one arrow and that's something. Peeta's almost back and there's no telling what he might do, his emotional fragility further taxed under the madness of tracker jacker venom. Finally Glimmer's body rolls over, my sister growls commands to herself. Katniss looks to the sky and sees something, maybe a phantom; the shot doesn't follow her view. She tugs at the quiver. Her breath comes in short gasps, her movements jerky.
When she frees it at last, she doesn't have a chance to vacate the area. She grabs the extra arrow and blinks her eyes, attempting to purge the cloud of psychotic poison from her view. The arrow slips as she tries to draw in preparation to fire. Despair and panic settle in as she stares confusedly at the bow.
Peeta bursts into the clearing, spear at the ready, the two camera shots resolving into one large image. "What are you still doing here?" Peeta roars at Katniss and I want to jump up and down, nearly falling out of my seat. It's true then! He does love her!
Katniss is slow to comprehend. She stares at Peeta as if he's not real. Peeta turns the blunt end of the spear and pokes Katniss, "Are you mad? Get up! Get up!" She finally complies with his commands. "Run! Run!" Peeta is still screaming at Katniss' unsteady gait when Cato jumps into the open, also unsure on his feet, the poison taking a deeper toll now.
It doesn't matter. Cato knows that Peeta has just helped Katniss escape. Peeta wheels around turning the spear to stab Cato. Unfortunately, the boy from District 2 is far more adept with weaponry and swings his short sword in a mighty arc snapping the shaft of Peeta's spear in two. Cato's blade sinks deep into the front of Peeta's left thigh! My arms tense against the desk.
Cato falls over, momentum from the swing dragging him off balance. Peeta drops the broken spear and grabs his leg, as he stumbles onto his good knee. Cato tries to push himself up off the ground, but Peeta punches him in the side of the head; the noise of the impact thunders in the classroom! All the students are cheering, even me. Now, everyone respects Peeta's selflessness. Katniss sacrificed herself for me and Peeta is willing to sacrifice himself for her. How could both tributes from District 12 be such generous people in the same year?
Cato regains his knees, while Peeta limps in circles around the Career. Cato lunges for him but misjudges. Peeta misjudges his own counter attack and both tributes fall dazed to the ground, Peeta's blood flows freely onto the pine-needle sod.
They continue to struggle, though neither of them has very much presence of mind any longer. Cato dropped his sword and can't locate it. Peeta's leg bothers him less and less, physical detachment an affect of the stings. He's losing blood fast and Cato is only stung and bruised. They hear more tributes crashing through the woods, two other Careers returning, brandishing their weapons and staggering as tracker jackers continue to harass them.
Cato grins insanely at Peeta and lunges once more. This time Peeta connects fully, his fist blasting Cato's cheek, the larger boy drops to the ground fully unconscious. Out of my seat, I'm hopping up and down, my voice joining in the squeals of excitement from the other kids. Alabeth and I embrace as the classroom cheers for the baker's son. Peeta looks at Cato, searching his own belt for a knife, to finish off the larger tribute. He is too overwhelmed by delusion to find a weapon.
Peeta turns, tucks his head down and runs headlong into the forest away from the Careers, along a different path than Katniss, creating a path actually, for the first few minutes of his flight. Peeta breaks through bushes and low-hanging branches, finally settling into a path as he continues running, the limp worsening now with each yard, both of his legs completely stained with blood.
I've seen wounds that bad before. They have to be cleaned thoroughly, properly, and regularly; or else infection is sure to set in, a common killer in the arena. The split-screen image shows the two careers attempting to revive Cato, with no luck. They each grab an arm and drag him arduously over the forest floor. To District 12's delight, the golden wasps still harass the trio.
Where's Katniss? When they finally show her, she's curled up in a fetal position in a pit of dead leaves, bow and quiver lying beside her. "Oh no," my voice creaks and Alabeth helps settle me into my chair. "No, no. Not today, Katniss," I whisper.
My sister doesn't respond; she just shivers in nightmares from the poison. Was she stung too many times to survive? Katniss was right near the nest when she sawed it out of the tree, tracker jackers stinging her even before it fell.
They couldn't have been regular wasps, just enough of a nuisance to drive the Careers away and allow Katniss the chance to escape. They had to be this hatefully toxic breed that the Capitol is incessantly proud of. Katniss shudders again, on the screen. Her eyes flutter open showing only whites.
Even our instructor was cheering, but now he tells the kids to sit down. Once the Gamemakers are sure nothing more that will happen soon, they run the replay of yesterday's events which comprise a handful of inactive moments with each tribute, the pursuit of Katniss, and wraps up with the events we just witnessed. Some of the shots are different, showing better angles of the events. Surely the citizens in the Capitol are just happy as they can be this morning, watching this carnage again while they shovel enormous breakfasts into their gullets.
After the replay, the instructor decides to leave the television on for a while longer, for my sake. He has a few kids of his own who will be in the reaping in a few years and I guess he feels sorry for me, even if that's not something we're permitted to say out loud.
Katniss shakes on the screen, moaning faintly. It might be my imagination that some of her panting sounds like my name. Then the camera slowly pans upward into a tree. Nestled on a branch, watching my sister, the little girl who has helped her twice, Rue watches intently; almost gets the urge to climb down from the tree, but then she settles back, unsure of what to do. If she goes to help Katniss there's a chance that Katniss would panic and kill her rather than accept whatever protection and assistance the petite tribute could offer.
Rue, The other twelve year old selected this year, the one who had no volunteer to take her place. Why was she helping Katniss? Because Katniss' eleven score means she can kill the Careers and then Rue only has to deal with the other tributes?
No, that's not it. There's something in her eyes as she gazes at my sister. Respect, not for the score assigned to my sister. I know what it is. Rue respects Katniss because she knows my sister volunteered for me. That's so rare in most of the districts that it is certainly a topic for discussion during the Hunger Games.
These events are about division. Dividing the people of our nation, but the citizens of Panem respect and honor those who give of themselves. That was why District 12 saluted Katniss in its unique way. That's why Rue is helping Katniss, now. She respects my sister's choices.
That is the unsung kinship between the districts who can't even communicate effectively between each other. Our lives, our plights are the same. We suffer under the same cruel system that hobbles our efforts to make life tolerable and punishes us arbitrarily. The little girl on the screen understands that too. The two of us understand that more than ever.