Princess of the Sea

By: CyanideMuffins7

Chapter 23: Noose

A/N: Hello my fellow readers. I apologize for the constant author's notes, but I find this one necessery. I'm sorry I said I would post this chapter last Sunday. I lied. I don't like lying, so I decided what the hell it's Friday. I might as well make it up to you guys and post it today. Thank you for reading this and I shall let you get back to reading this chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Hunger Games, the trilogy or any of the characters Suzanne Collins has created. I only take credit for the characters I have created and the plot I have made.

I can't believe it, and I don't even want to. But it makes sense. Hei was the Tribute that left the soup in that niche close by our camp, so he knew where we were. That twitch he did when I took his cleavers away proved he was conscious and was fully aware I was there. Then giving me that medicine proved he was trying to help me.

But why, what would Hei get if he helped me? I don't understand anything now. Everything seems to be just a giant cloud of confusion that's raining over my head.

When my friends died, it seemed like I never knew them. Their bodies aren't present with me, like it was before I had ever met them. Now that Bachus was dead, everything seemed like there was no pain. He cared for me and I didn't even cry. Even when I think about it, I don't cry. My eyes don't even water. It seems like whenever something horrible happens to me, I don't cry. When I watched Evan and Ian's death, I didn't cry then. I just felt sad.

I'm just so confused now. The time I cried after my mother's death will be the last time I will ever cry. I'm just a stone hearted creature, trying to move on with her life. But it's just so hard not to think about them. They made a huge impact on my life, how can I forget that?

I slowly take my time to stand up, just in case the pain had only subdued while I was unconscious. I get up on my feet and brush off the dirt off of my pants and jacket. I should wonder through the bog since I'm pretty much compromised around my camp. If anything I should lay low until the heat dies down.

I don't want to go the same way the Careers departed to, so I head to a little bit east of their path. I take my time walking, much like I'm just strolling. I was tired and I don't care if the audience finds me boring now.

I'm wandering for a good few hours through the bog. I find myself not really getting anywhere by wandering aimlessly in the dark for hours on end. I need to know where I'm going. If Wren was still here or if I had a photographic memory, I would know where I was going. But I have neither of those now.

I must have something to let me know where I'm going. I take off my pack and begin to search for something. But the first thing I see is the red flare that I retrieved from Canon's pack. It provided me a lot of light and safety on my last use.

I stretch my arm away from me and I pop the cap off, letting the sparks shine in front of me. I hold it like a torch to let the light shine my way through the darkness. My path was clear now with light to guide me. I make sure I stay quiet, keeping my steps light even though every other step I take seems to step on a small twig.

The symphony of frogs, crickets, the flare and the sound of the breaking twigs created a rather soothing ambience as I walk past a few trees. I don't feel at all peaceful, but it felt nice. I could even hear a sound of a crescendo scream, but it sounded like it was a Truman screaming, so I didn't worry about it.

My eyes scanned the area around me to get a better look at everything. But they froze when I saw Bachus standing in between two trees a few feet away from me. He was staring back at me, not moving a muscle. I'm speechless, no breathless. It feels like I've been drowning in this regret for a long time, when it's only been a few hours. The damn cannon shot fired, how can it…

Then everything just came to me. I've been drowning in this water for so long without even realizing it. My stone heart is the only thing that is weighing me down. The only way I can face everything is to let it all go. I have to let go of Wren, Canon, Coda, Bachus, even Dad and Valentine in order to get back to the surface to breath. I will never see them again, and once they're gone, they will never come back.

I take me spear from my pack and began to run towards Bachus. As I ran I could smell the sweet faint scent of flowers. It's not a specific smell that I cannot describe without saying just flowers in general. I smelled flowers the day I was ambushed by the Keiner. It clicked in my head that this was a Keiner, disguising itself to use Bachus against me. I'm not afraid.

Right as I approach the Keiner with the flare, I stabbed it right in its neck. It screamed a high pitch sound that practically made me deaf. I stabbed it again, but this time in the chest where the heart is. The Keiner fell right off the spear and collapsed to the ground. Right as I blinked, the vision of Bachus was gone. The only thing that laid before me was a hairless, tall thin creature with scrunched up nose and pearl white eyes. I could see its flesh wings spread out beside it. It looked like the Capitol took a human and mutated it with a bat. It looked horrific. I step over the Keiner and continue my journey.

I had let everything go in order to escape from drowning in sorrow. Now when I think about everyone, I don't feel sad or regret. It was like looking at a scar, you remember how you got it but it doesn't affect you as much when you first got the wound. This is for the better. The more I forget about everyone and everything, the better off I'll be.

My flare seemed to dim out until the last spark lighted to a slow moving river. At first I assume I just traveled in a big circle, but the area around me didn't seem familiar. I toss the flare in the bushes and plop down against a willow tree while I stretch my legs out. It's been a tough few hours for me, but I've managed to survive.

I feel a low rumbling sound within my stomach that seemed to rise up my throat like my stomach was reaching out for any food. Unfortunately I don't have any food to nourish the wants of my stomach. But I have a spear and I'm sitting right by a stream, I could probably catch something.

Just as I'm about to get up, a parachute glides in the air before it falls gently to the ground by my feet. I slide myself closer to the parachute and opened the box to have a cloud full of steam stick to my face. I look into the box to see a full bowl of soup and a few rolls. I could feel my mouth beginning to water and I just instantly began to dig into the fresh soup. It tasted like beef with a slight spicy kick to it. I like it, especially if I dunk some of the rolls in the soup. I manage to finish the soup off with the rolls before I realized I probably should have saved some of the rolls.

I didn't regret it that much since I could probably fish for food plus that soup was warming my belly in a rather comforting way. But then there was the question as to what I will be defending myself with. One spear and a utility knife aren't exactly proper weapons that I could do a lot of damage with.

I open my pack to explore my contents. I pull out about two more flares and four sticks of dynamite, then one whole line of rope, my canteen, the spear and Bachus's bandana. If I want to defend myself, I'm going to have to be clever and unique with it. My Sponsors send me food but they don't bother sending me a weapon, so I have to out due the weapons that the Capitol makes in order to still have their attention.

I look over to the parachute and see if I can find anything else of use. I pick up the metal box and inspect it. The metal is quite sturdy but I won't really find a use for it. I put down the box and fiddle with the parachute. I observe the lining but fingers feel around the chord. It felt thick but as I pulled on it a little bit. It's very stretchy, but it still had tension. This will be perfect. I rip through the parachute and retrieve the chord.

I toss the parachute and box now that I have no use for it. All I need is a sturdy branch to fully make a weapon. I stand from my spot and look around the willow tree for any of its branches. I pick one up and move it around to see that it was very flimsy. I toss it behind me and keep looking. I probably need to keep looking around. I grab all of my things, place it in my pack, sling it over my shoulders and jog out of my resting spot. I keep my eyes on the ground for any branch that would please me, but just like the last time I scavenged for stuff, it's slim pickings. A lot of the branches were flimsy and thin. I'm looking for a sturdy branch, not something that could break just as I'm using it.

By the time the sun began to shine in the arena, I was able to see much better and I spotted a few branches that had caught my eye. I pick out one from beside the tree and swing it around. It was a little heavy, but I could whittle it down to my needs, so that won't be much of a problem. But it wasn't really thick, it was just long. I keep my grip on the branch and continue down northeast.

I look over my shoulder to notice a Truman was waddling behind me with its abnormal smile. It kept smiling and following me. I turn my head back around and by the time the sun is almost towards the center of the sky, I find a good spot to rest beside a tree.

I take out my canteen and took a sip before getting to work. I take my sturdy branch and saw off a few feet until the branch was as long as my shoulder to my wrist. I take the part of the branch that I sawed off and tie the center of that branch towards the end of the branch facing away from me. I use the parachute chord and tied one end on each side of the branch I just added. I make sure I tighten it enough so that the chord won't fall off. I make sure I still feel the tension by pulling on the end of the chord so that the branch flexed back. Right as I had let go I heard the slap of the chord hitting my hand. It hurt but at least I know how much power it has. The Truman tried to touch it, but I smacked its paw. It made a high sound that sounded like, eh.

I place the branch aside and began to sharpen my spear with a soft stone. I then touch it up while I hone the spear head on my boot. I then placed the spear on the branch so that the spearhead could rest on the horizontal branch while it was behind the parachute chord. I then took the rest of the rope and tie it to the end of the spear. I take the other end of the rope and tie it to the end of the vertical branch. There was a lot of rope that spaced out from the spear and the end of the branch.

I stand up with the newly created weapon and point it to the tree in front of me. I use my left hand to hold onto the branch while my right hand pulled on the chord with the spear. I make the tree my target and let go of the chord where the spear darted right into the tree trunk.

A small grin begins to form on my face, but shake it off and dash to the spear and examine the damage. The spear seemed to have made a clean puncture into the trunk. I try to yank it out, but it went pretty deep in the trunk. I had to use my foot to push on the tree as I pull on the spear to get it out. I arm it back in its place on the weapon. I should try it on a more distant target. I point the weapon at a distant willow that's about a yard or two away from me, pull on the chord with the spear, and release. The spear went straight into the willow, making an effective puncture into the tree.

I now have a working harpoon gun.