Chapter 5: "He's in the Dark"

-Jon-

Two days. I've made it two days. Two long days filled with blood splatter on your face, screams ringing in the night, the dry taste of mud in the water, the smell of fresh pine, and holding on to what matters most. I've lived two days through this.

"Not bad", I thought to myself, approvingly.

I stretched my right arm across my body, keeping the point of the short sword in my left hand far away from any of my squishy parts. Yawning, my free hand pulled out a small water container from my backpack. I knew it was pretty much empty, but I hoped that eventually it would refill itself out of mercy. The small scraping of aluminum resonated as I stared down the opening.

Inside, a fine dust lined the walls of the once filled container. I held on to the memory of gulping down the bottle's humble contents. Despite the gritty crumbs of dirt scraping across my tongue, the cool drink filled me with a sense of security after the chaos of the Cornucopia. Only seconds after did I consider the possibility of the Gamemakers pre-lacing the water with a poison. I threw it out of mind. It tasted awful enough to seem like a lame attempt to get some sort of "hilarious" spit-take for the Capitol sheep to laugh at.

The ground below me turned from the soft padding of shoes against rocks to an alternating squish and shlop of mud clinging on to my shoes. Minuscule in size, a trail of water dripped from a mud puddle nestled between the rocks into the ground below me. Resigning to dirty drinking once again, I lowered my bottle into the purest sampling I could find. Trickling in from the tiny brook, the water, soiled with dirt, filled my compact water bottle. Wiping the rim, I brought the bottle to my mouth and took a small sip. It'd probably be better to save it this time, if I want to last.

When I finished twisting the cap shut, I unzipped the front pocket of my backpack. The small gleam of metal peaked out from the bottom of the darkness. Depositing the bottle into the pack's pocket, I pulled out the small necklace. Each section of the chain flowed through my hands; at the center a small heart piece dangled. I ran my thumb across the face of the heart. Who does this belong to?

The pain in my brow made me realize that I had been squinting to compensate for the light.

"Are they just screwing with us, or did it really get dark this fast?" The shadows cast behind me began to bleed into the encroaching darkness. Knees popping as I stood, I studied my options. To my right, a rocky clearing lay, inviting everyone to find me in the open, defenseless. To my left, a thick forest stood, densely pack with ground foliage and low hanging branches, further solidifying the night.

I cursed my luck; (or more likely) the luck that had been made for me. Choosing, hopefully, the lesser of two evils, I head off into the forest, trying to minimize the sounds of leaves slapping against my leg.

What I think was an hour later passed and everything look just the same as it did five minutes in. I ran my thumb over the necklace in nervousness. I could barely see the tips of my fingers, much less the necklace, but I felt all the way from the heart pendant to the end-where the necklace suddenly ended in a break. It's was probably ripped from its owner; each left alone in these stupid games. I still felt bad just picking the thing up off the ground in the mess at the Cornucopia, but it's better than losing it completely.

I shook my head. Needing to be distracted from this and my boredom, I watched at my surroundings, hoping for something interesting.

Tree. Black. Tree. Dirt. Fern. Tree. Dark. Branch. Leaf. Oh hey look, a tree!

Well, that didn't help.

Piercing the silence, a jaunty tune played from above, muffled slightly by the plants around me. Instinctively, I looked up towards the sky, only to be greeted by a face full of branch.

Ow. I tried to maneuver my vision around the branches, but leaves smothered everything. A blue hue of projected light shone through, taunting me. The crescendo of the music hit, and began to slowly fade out, leaving me with no more information than I started with. Silence filled the vacuum that the music had left. I sighed.

"I think I may have heard a few cannon shots earlier today so at least I know that much." I gripped the small chain in my hand; I had some sort of feeling that its owner may have been in today's list. Despite knowing, if not someone else, I would have to deal with this person, it still felt bad.

I curled the chain around my hand, ready to put it in my pocket, when the soft crunch of leaves twenty feet away traveled to my ears.

"Come at me bro," I whispered to myself. I stood motionless, sword ready, opening my ears to more sounds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds. A minute. Two. Five. Nothing happened. "The hell? Must have been a squirrel or something, I guess."

I relaxed my shoulders. I was confident that this forest is too thick to move sneakily through at any rate. A branch snapped and crunched behind me. I twirled around, swinging my sword. The sword swung through the darkness, then suddenly stopped. A wave of vibrations rippled up my arm. My eyes shot upward. A huge shadow towered over me.

I tried to yank the sword away, but this thing cemented the blade in its grip. My focus darted back and forth from the stuck sword, and the thing that held it. An arm swung a bludgeon toward my head. In order to duck far enough to avoid the hit, I had to let go. Releasing my hands from the only tool I had, I shot backwards. A resounding crunch filled the space where my head once was. I scrambled onto my feet and, panting harshly, I took off.

Splintering wood and cracked my twigs chased me as I fled. Each noise amplified by the night, I kept running in any direction, just away from the sound. My dry tongue, stuck to the bottom of my mouth, grew worse with each breath. Leaves and branches slapped my face, while roots and rocks clawed at my legs. I tried to ignore the pain. I still had no idea what that thing was, but I knew it was fast enough to circle me and strong enough to rip my weapon from me.

I realized that the sound had died down. "I think," I panted, "it's gone for now." A drop of blood crept through my fingers. I pulled my hand up to my face. Trails of blood appeared where the chain had been squeezed into my flesh. I wiped the blood across my shirt and polished the heart pendent. I couldn't tell if it was getting cleaner or not.

The calm broke again, as noise surrounded me. Too dark to see the sources, I dove in the one direction that held silence. I made it ten steps before a force shoved me backwards. I needed to keep moving away.

Distant, almost as if in another body, I could hear the sound of bone snapping as a force broke through my arm. I shoved the shadow that caused this, to the side and stumbled forward.

I grasped my failing arm, strangely empty of the searing pain I thought would come. I limped forward, legs bearing the fear that weld within me. Thirsty and tired, my pace grew exponentially slower the farther I walked.

From the relatively quiet sounds of footsteps, incoherent screams of horror and anguish cried out behind me as I continued. The screams died off as I got farther.

Pain welled up within me, building in fury as I dragged myself away. The pain burst from my lips. "What the hell is going on?" I yelled into the night behind me, hoping that it would not answer my question.

Instead, this summoned a glee filled laugh ahead of me.

"Hahahahahaha!"

Weaponless and defenseless, I still went forward; I had to figure out what this new thing was. The cat-like laugh grew silent as I grew closer. Ambling forward, the shuffling sound told me she was keeping her distance. I needed something to swing. I bent down and dragged my fingers across the ground, hoping to find a sharp stick or a solid branch.

The granules of rock and dirt scrapped against my skin, but this rough plane was interrupted the feeling of softness. For a half of a second, I had the chance to question why there would be a human softness here on the dirt.

Once that time was up, a knife dug into my chest. The once giddy voice in front me screamed out in surprised and scampered away. A hand removed the knife from my heart. Blacking out, I felt the coarse, dirty ground for the last time.