A/N: Well, remember when I said my days of MIAs were over? Yeah… oops. School has been pretty bad. Like, really bad. BUUUT I'm on Christmas break now, so I got a whole two weeks of free time to kill, and what better way than to complete the cliffhanger that I left last chapter?
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District 7
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We all anxiously watched as our male district tribute struggled against a large, white, snake-like mutation. He'd been fighting the creature for a good five or ten minutes, and the beast was showing no signs of fatigue, where Colin obviously was. The mutt eventually wrapped its complete body around our tribute and began squeezing him to death. Many of us looked away, knowing well that there was no hope for him, that he would ultimately meet his downfall in the throat of the monster. He went unconscious, not quite dead yet, and the snake's head perked up, wolf-like ears twitching around, listening, looking, for something in the distance.
A little spot of blood busted out of the side of its head, followed by another out the other end, and the monster let out a deep roar as it flailed its head about before falling to the snowy ground. The screen cut to a fight between to other tributes, and nervous chatter broke out amongst the crowd gathered in the central square.
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The Arena
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I woke up to a peculiar feeling, a tiny, tickling, scratchy feeling all over my face. I opened my eyes, and sunlight blazed into them, and a felt multiple small sets of legs scurry off my face, and I caught a glimpse of the colorful tail of a lizard as I sat up. My head was throbbing, no surprise there, but perhaps the bigger one was that I even woke up. Why wasn't I dead?
I sat up, and to my continued amazement, the arena had again morphed into a completely different environment overnight. The cold tundra had been replaced with a humid jungle, complete with the wildlife, it appeared. After coming to a full stand, I realized just how thirst I was, and with only a little water on the second day, and some snow the third, I was probably going to start feeling it if I couldn't find any water, along with some food, since I hadn't gotten the opportunity to eat the fur-snake mutt. With no indication of which way to go, I set off downhill, since water is always at the bottom of hills, right?
It didn't take long to reach the bottom of the hill and, fortunately, there was a rather deep, slow stream awaiting me. I hastily filled my canteen and took a long drink. I did my best to drink enough water to convince myself I wasn't hungry, and to be honest, I felt a bit better. With nothing better to do, I sat down to rest. As I listened to the surreal sounds of the jungle; the birds, faint animal calls, and quiet flow of the stream, another sound caught my ear. A high-pitched beeping tone that seemed to be coming from above me. I looked up, and sure enough, there was a silver box with a tiny parachute caught in a branch a few feet overhead. I jumped up and pulled the box free of its parachute, and opened the sponsorship. Inside was an object most peculiar, a round that looked exactly like the rounds my rifle used, but the bullet was replaced by a small syringe in the casing. I pulled the funny round out of the foam bedding and noticed a piece of paper laying in the foam. It read:
"You can do this May, there are only a few other people in there. Plus, if you don't, you'll have run your family near bankrupt for nothing! You wouldn't believe how expensive that tiny round is, and how important it is. Just, shoot a mutt with it and the thing will pretty much become a guard dog for you. It activates some sort of genome or something, I didn't read much of the information on it, but be sure to not waste it and, for all our sakes, please don't miss."
~Mom, Lucy, and Grant
I shook the round, and could feel some sort of liquid sloshing around inside. How a syringe-bullet was supposed to fire out of the incredible high-powered rifle was beyond me, but I had to have faith, someone would've said something if it wouldn't work, right? I was amazed that my mom and little siblings had that much hope in me, that they bankrupt the family for my sake. I carved a bit of the foam out of the case and plucked it on the tip of the syringe before sliding it into my pocket. A cannon boomed in the distance, shaking me out of my thoughts and into reality. Deciding I should get moving, I stood up, filled my canteen once more, and set out upstream, since I needed to regain the ground I lost coming down to the creek.
About an hour later, I heard a shrill cry, then another, then another. A pack of something was nearby, most likely some twisted Capitol mutts, which were not my choice of encounter at the moment. I broke off from the stream and started up the hill, the cries staying constant and a bit more frequent as I went, until I reached the top, where a wide plain greeted me. At first glance, it appeared empty, just thick green grass until the treeline took over again at the far end of the field. Not wanting to repeat my last few mistakes, I searched for anything even a bit off, and sure enough, there was a small patch of grass about sixty or seventy feet out that wasn't swaying in the wind at the same rate, and looked quite odd. I grabbed a rock nest to my foot and threw it out, far to the right of the clump, which landed with a barely audible "thud" into the dirt, and a few long, green-crested feathery heads popped up facing the direction of my little stone. The best way to describe it was that it looked akin to a skeleton I'd seen on the window of a Capitol museum on way to the training center. Urataraper? Utahrater? Something along those lines, and I figured it no stretch for the Capitol to remake it as a mutt, as the skeleton alone looked like a formidable predator. I slung the rifle off my shoulder and dropped the magazine out, removed the remaining seven rounds, and put the one syringe round in the clip, before popping it back in and bolting the slide. I took aim at the hardly-visible neck of the tallest one, and fired.
The rifle itself made no noise at all, thanks to its suppressor. The pack, however, made more than enough noise to compensate, as they all let out their shrill cries as the tallest one fell to the ground. From the jungle across the clearing came another group, and I noticed the feathers on the approaching herd seemed to change from an earthy brown and green to a solid, vibrant green as they crossed into the field. The two groups met, then headed off into the jungle the same way the second set came, leaving me and the one downed mutt alone. I put the actual bullets back into the clip and fed it back into the rifle before going to investigate my catch.
I made my way through the tall grass until I was confronted with the mutt, which I confirmed to be just like the museum window. It laid on its side, breathing softly, although unconscious. It had a theropod build with long, strong legs and smaller arms, a lengthy tail and decently large neck, of which a pink feathered dart was sticking out. I crouched down, not quite sure what to do next, so I sat and waited.
Not long after, the mutt flinched, then woke. I jumped back, not sure whether I was about to be eaten. I grabbed my sidearm and slipped off the safety. The mutt stood up, as did I, and it looked me straight in the eye. We stood there for a few seconds, just staring at each other. It stood, as if expecting me to make the first move. I stood, frozen not sure what to do, a bit surprised the little syringe was actually working. The syringe! I slowly lifted my hand up as the mutt tilted its head to where I could see it, and I plucked the little needle out of the mutt's neck. It made a low noise, perked up its head, and took off into the woods at an amazing speed, leaving me standing alone in the grass. With the sun waning low in the arena sky, I decided to call it an early night, since there wasn't much I could really do. I backed into the jungle and found a giant thee with an opening in its trunk partially covered by the slope of the hill I sat down with my legs crossed, covering my entire body in the trunk, and went to sleep.
About an hour later, a set of footsteps woke me up. A slow, thumping pair of footsteps that were approaching my little hideout. I pulled my handgun out and quietly undid the safety as they approached. Hopefully, I could put the person out quickly, no pain or fear. I listened closer as the steps got closer, and I noticed a sliding sound that was following; the person was dragging something along with them. The sounds stopped right outside my tree, and the nose of the same Utah-whatever poked into the opening, followed by the rest of its face. It seemed to want me to come out, and I hesitantly obliged. Next to my tree was a dead wolf-like thing, which I concluded my mutt friend had killed. It hadn't eaten it's prey, though. In fact, the tooth marks in the wolf's neck seemed to be the only markings on it. The mutt looked down at the wolf, then back at me.
"Is this for me?" I softly questioned, hoping it understood English, and the mutt looked back at me as if to say "Of course it is, you really need to eat missy!" I chuckled at the thought, and slid my pistol back into its holster and unstrapped my knife, and began cleaning the wolf best I knew how.
Eventually, I got what looked like the most edible parts out and made a quick fire to cook them on. The organs and such, I placed in a separate pile that Tooth (The name I decided to give to my new mutt friend after tripping and accidentally discovering that it was male) seemed keen to eating. I didn't mind, since I wasn't too fond of eating intestines and genitals. Surprisingly, the wolf meat actually tasted rather good, although it could've been because I was starving to death, and with a full stomach and new friend, who was also well fed, I finally drifted to sleep.
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A/N: I'm sorry, I really am, I meant to have this out last weekend, but I ran out of places for this to go, and I pretty much came up with this on the spot. A new friend for our protagonist, the Utahraptor Tooth. I even put my own crack at immature humor in there if anyone caught it, and made it another double length chapter. I can guarantee another chapter before New Year's, and to end this off, a question:
What can I do to make this better? Any sort of feedback is immensely useful, and that's pretty much what keeps my writing these things.
Also, if you're new to my writing, check out my other stuff, because I work really hard on it, and you might like it! That's all, sorry for a SUPER delayed chapter and this has been Pix, signing off!
