Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games nor do I own anything by Ralph Waldo Emerson
A/n: Apologies for the hiatus. I got hit by a sudden realisation that I had a week until my exams were to begin and I was still learning new topics. But they're over now. And, since it's been so long, I thought I should probably give a quick summary of the last chapters so you don't have to wonder what the heck is going on ;) So, enjoy!
Summary - Anfisa and Mattis were a team for the first 2 days. On the morning of the third, Anfisa fell off a cliff and woke up, unsure of what day it was and injured. She met Gloss who pretended to owe her a favour so he wouldn't have to kill her and pretended to lose his backpack so that she would have water and some first-aid. As she walked along, she heard strange sounds and found the girl from D6 caught in a trap. Instead of killing her, she let her go and the girl has decided she owes Anfisa a favour as a result.
9) Character is Higher Than Intellect
As the watch goes on, my mood improves and so, when I wake Lela up, I'm actually polite to her. She handles the fire-making and the cooking; I handle the watching. Soon, we're eating her stolen food. I think this is the first substantial meal I've had since I got here.
As we eat, I study her. She's about average height, thin with red hair and a number of bruises. I think she's around my age. Despite her passive smile, she has the same haunted air to her as Gloss did. I wonder if I have it as well.
I explain to her about falling off a cliff on the third day and tell her I woke up on the evening of the death of the boy from District 7. She thinks for a moment before informing me that the boy died on the fourth day and was the only death. That means that this is the sixth day and there have been no deaths since his. Without thinking, I ask her if she knows how he died.
"No," she says quietly. "But I heard him scream." She shivers even though it's starting to warm up. "He was screaming that he'd kill himself instead..."
"I guess the bigger tributes caught him?" I ask. It's stupid to ask. It isn't for therapy, that's for sure: this question is more disturbing than the last one! I'm asking because I want to know that Gloss did what I know he must have done. What all of them have done. So that I can face reality about him and the way the Games work – since I'm clearly not getting it myself. As evidenced by the fact I'm looking at Lela.
"I don't think so," she answers to my surprise. "I heard some kind of grunting. And, it was weird ... the hovercraft didn't come straight away but when it did come, his body was ... it looked like it was just a few pieces. I thought it was a monster."
"But the hovercraft would come if it were a mutt," I point out.
"But who would do that?" she asks. "It couldn't be a tribute. No one's that vicious."
Lela seems to have more faith in the human race than I do. Of course people are that vicious, I want to say. They invented the Hunger Games.
"Hopefully, we'll never find out," I say instead. She smiles slightly. I ask her what she's been doing in the arena (after all, she's heard about me and my fall). This takes her mind off the dismembered tribute very well. She tells me she ran from the Cornucopia and hid. She stole some things from it later, when the bigger tributes were distracted – water, some food, a long knife and some rope and hooks. Since then, she's been wandering and attempting to trap animals – not all too successfully though – before she walked into the cave and got caught by the trap. It occurs to me that, despite what I thought, Lela is intelligent. And tough.
This is worrying. I keep my hand on the handle of my knife as we get up. Just because I let her go doesn't mean she's going to keep her promise. Not if she's as intelligent as she seems to be. I can't trust her. The best thing to do would be to part ways with her now.
"Shall we go?" she asks.
"You want to team up?"
She shrugs. "I owe you a favour and it's got to be easier with two of us." She looks at me and sees my position. "You don't trust me."
"Pretty much," I reply. "Sorry."
"I could have killed you when you were sleeping if I wanted to kill you."
"You couldn't be sure I was actually asleep though. Because if I didn't trust you, I wouldn't sleep then. And you could be lulling me into a false sense of security so that you can kill me later."
She smiles her passive smile again before taking off her pack and tossing it at my feet. Then she does the same with her knife.
"There. My life in your hands again," she says.
"But you can guess I won't let you do that," I point out, "because I let you go yesterday."
She rolls her eyes. "Are you always this cold and mistrustful?"
"Yes."
"I don't believe you," she says.
"Just like I don't believe you?"
She smiles properly. "No. You don't believe me because you don't have all of the facts or know everything about me. I don't believe you because you let me go when you should have killed me. Call it a gut instinct but you're not as bad as you want me to think."
For a few seconds, we size each other up. Despite myself, I'm beginning to like her. She's smart but not in the way I am – more in an intuitive sort of way. She's much more emotional than me and she thinks in terms of emotions. But she seems to have gotten my measure well. That doesn't mean I can trust her – in fact, it makes her more dangerous – but she might be worth having as an ally for a while. And if favours do matter to her, she's in my debt.
"Let's go up," I say. She agrees. And, together, we begin to hike upwards.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
We don't talk much as we walk though we take a break every hour, probably because we're both limping. Neither of us discusses our lives before the Games. I think she doesn't because I don't take up any of her hints to start a conversation about it. I don't want to know. I can't handle reality in relation to the other tributes. Even if I seem to have decided that I won't be killing any of them.
At about midday, I start to slow down. We've been walking at what is, for most people, a reasonable pace – but I still haven't recovered from the fall. Although my legs have gotten stronger, I begin to feel dizzy and sick. I don't tell Lela this because, despite her "inspirational" speech, I don't want to show weakness to her. She might say she's trustworthy but people in strange situations don't act normally. She might take advantage and regret it later.
When I stumble, she proves me wrong by immediately catching me and asking me if I'm OK. By now, I've begun to retch which should provide an answer for her. She makes me sit down and gives me water. I feel like I did when I was very young and my dad would look after me.
As soon as she asks me if I'm OK, I say yes. We get up but I begin to feel dizzy again and start to stumble because the ground won't stay still. To my surprise, she lifts one of my arms and slings it around her shoulder, telling me to lean on her. We walk like this until we reach a fork in the path, despite my occasional protests that I can walk by myself (these aren't lies, by the way. I can walk by myself. Just not very far).
"Which way?" she asks me. I'm about to answer when I notice that the wind has picked up. I mention this to Lela who looks around us. A rock flies by us. This indicates that we're in a lot of trouble.
As more debris flies towards us, we crouch, trying to shield ourselves. I peek out from between my arms.
"A lot of it's flying right," I tell her.
"So?"
"So we should go left!"
She doesn't question it, thankfully – she straightens up. Something flies into her back and she sprawls forward. I shuffle forward as she picks herself up. Her nose is out of place: it's broken. To her credit though, Lela doesn't give any sign that she's in pain apart from tears which well up in her eyes. It seems that the only thing which panics her is being caught in metal traps and hearing strange tributes come up to her.
She extends her hand and I grab it. Together, we shuffle towards the left hand path. Something tears into my arm, re-opening an old wound but I don't shout out. Not that it would matter if I did – the wind is getting stronger; it's impossible to hear anything above its shrieking.
We keep shuffling. I spot one of the caves in the distance and drag her towards it because our best chance will be where we can be as much out of the wind as possible. The wind keeps blowing harder but neither of us pays it any attention. A few times, one of us is knocked over. By the time we make it to the cave, I can barely recognise the red-headed girl; her arms are streaming red and she immediately takes her coat off and rips off broken parts, wrapping them around her injuries. I look in Gloss' pack for the rest of the anti-septic and start to apply it to her arms. She stops me.
"Id wond helb," she says thickly, struggling to speak with her broken nose. I stare at her so she shakes her head, telling me that what she was saying was, 'It won't help'. I study her again. I don't know much about first aid but she's bleeding so heavily that I doubt the anti-septic would stick. But I still apply some to her nicer cuts. I probably shouldn't be helping her but she hasn't once left me to die or taken advantage of my illness. She believes we're a team, even if it's because she's in my debt. Or was. She isn't anymore, in my mind. But she probably thinks she is. And at some point today, I've felt like we're a team as well. Like Mattis and me. And team members help each other.
"Loog afder yourself," she mutters after another minute of this. Obediently, I look at myself to see what's wrong. Somehow, I'm in a better condition than she is but what's left of my coat has to become my bandages and I still feel dizzy. I use water on some of my worse cuts. I don't think I have enough sponsorship money for Apa to send me anything of use.
For the next hour, we sit in the cave and try to stop the bleeding. I'm mostly successful so I help Lela who is now very pale. I don't think she's going to live much longer unless she gets some kind of help. I ask her, as casually as I can, whether she could get any help from her sponsors. She laughs in response. Even if she has sponsors (and she must do with her performance) I don't think they'll be enough. I then tell her that I'd offer help from my sponsors but I'm in the same position (worse, probably, but never mind). She tries to smile and asks me if she's going to die.
"We all have to die eventually," I say. This isn't a lie. This is simply avoiding the question. I may be honest but it doesn't mean I'm always on point.
"Anfiza!" she growls.
"I don't know," I tell her this time. "You look awful though. But that could just be you in pain."
She nods and winces. "Hey, I dink der wind iz dyink down," she says. It takes me a few seconds to translate this but I nod when I work it out.
"I'll go look," I say. I stand up and force my legs to move. Behind me, I hear her standing up. I tell her to sit back down but she ignores me. Looking out of the cave, I can't hear any wind. Tentatively, I walk outside. "It's fine," I tell her.
Then the wind picks up again.
It's sudden. I'm not prepared for it but I'm blown off my feet. Carefully, I stand up again and prepare to run back into the cave.
"Anfiza! Loog oud!" Lela yells and the next thing I know, something knocks me off my feet and the world blacks out.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Water splashes onto me and wakes me up. Next to me, a male voice is telling me to please open my eyes. Startled, I do so and find myself looking into familiar brown eyes.
"Mattis!" I shout and wince.
"The one and only," he answers, sounding relieved. "I thought I'd find you eventually. Do you want a hand sitting up?" He offers his hand. Dumbly, I take it and let myself be pulled into a sitting position. I'm still outside the cave but there's debris lying around.
"How did you find me?" I ask.
He runs his hand through his matted hair. For the first time, I notice a long cut on his forehead. And he sounds a lot calmer than when we were together. More confident. "The wind. I was just wandering and then the wind picked up and things started flying at me. It kept going in certain directions so I just avoided it. There was a cannon, just as I walked here and saw you lying there with that girl on top of you so-"
"Wait," I interrupt him. "Girl lying on top of me?"
"Yeah. I moved her a few metres away – hovercraft hasn't come yet, probably because we're still here, but-"
"Hovercraft?"
"She's dead, Anfisa," he says softly. "Some kind of rock hit her hard and I think it either killed her then or snapped her neck. You didn't see?"
"No, I ... she knocked into me and that's when I fell," I tell him, numb. I try to think back to those last moments of consciousness. I'd been on the path. I stood up. She shouted something and I saw her moving towards me. She ran into me. She must have seen something flying towards me and pushed me out of the way, getting herself killed instead. "She saved me."
"Did she?" Mattis sounds surprised. "Why?"
"Repaying a favour."
"What?" he asks. I explain, as briefly as I can, about finding her in the cave and not killing her. He gives me a strange look. "You let her go?" I nod. "Why?"
I shrug. "I ... didn't want to kill her." He stares at me and I feel irritated. "I just didn't want to kill her. I don't want to kill anyone. Ever."
There's a split-second of silence when I suddenly want to take what I said back. Not because it's wrong but because it was a stupid and dangerous thing to say. No one ever admits to not wanting to kill on the Hunger Games. Not if they want to live.
"I thought you would kill though," he says, apparently not realising the horribleness of what I've just said. "You're just so..."
"Guess you were wrong then," I tell him coldly, still trying not to panic. He looks hurt so I ask him what he's been doing since I fell off the cliff. I need something to calm me down.
He tells me that he waited in the inlet until the shaking stopped. He didn't hear a cannon but the noise in the earthquake was loud enough that he couldn't be sure I hadn't died during that. So he walked along the path. In the evening, it was clear that I was still alive but he wasn't sure how to get down so he assumed that if he walked in the general area, he'd eventually run into me. Apart from hiding from the boy from District 9 this morning, he's basically spent the last few days wandering the area, trying to find me.
He does mention that the boy from District 9 looked panicked, as though something was chasing him, and his arm was bleeding profusely – it looked, Mattis said, as though something had tried to tear flesh out of it. This reminds me of the grunting killer of the boy from District 7 but I don't mention it. Instead, I tell him about waking up from the fall and running into Gloss – although I edit that, saying I gave Gloss useful information and that's why he let me go. Mattis frowns but doesn't question it. I have a feeling he knows I'm not telling the truth – I never was a good liar. After all, I only know what's right so how can I confidently assert something which I know isn't right?
By this point, the world is staying in one place for me. The sun is beginning to set and Mattis suggests just staying in the cave until the next morning. I don't really want to move so I agree and stand up. That's when I realise I have a bandage. I ask him where it came from.
He won't look me in the eye as he says he got it from Lela's pack. Of course, I think. She used them on my fingers. I resist the sudden urge to either shout at him or rip it from my head. Instead, I try to think about it logically. She's not going to need anything in that pack anymore so we may as well use it. Besides, if Lela and I were a team, we'd share. I think.
This makes me wonder: if she had the bandages, why did she not use them on her arms? I'd forgotten about them but she must have known. But she used her coat instead. And refused anti-septic. I told her I thought she might die but I'm not a doctor. Without saying a word to Mattis, I walk over to her body and inspect it, ignoring the sharp stench of blood and the mutilated thing which used to be her head. Looking at her back, I see horrendous cuts and even particularly jagged pieces of debris stuck there. Coupled with the injuries to her arms and her broken nose, Lela must have assumed that she was going to die and that the bandages wouldn't have helped.
Well, that explains her heroism. She said she owed me her life. Maybe, since she thought she was dying anyway, she decided to literally give it to me.
Or maybe, she was just a good person. Like Mattis, who came to look for me when he couldn't save me. I didn't think anyone would do those things for someone in the Games because it's not the rational thing to do. Just like me letting Lela go wasn't the rational thing to do. But it felt like the right thing to do and maybe that's what they thought as well. Maybe character really is higher than intellect.
But I'll never know now. Dead people don't answer psychological questions.
"Are you OK?" Mattis asks, coming to stand next to me.
"Yeah," I say. "Come on. Let's go in the cave. Hopefully they'll pick up her body. Grab her knife first."
He nods and then walks over to the body. I consider saying something to the corpse but there's nothing to say. She can't hear me anyway. I follow Mattis into the cave.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
There isn't much food left but there is some rope and hooks in the pack so Mattis sets traps in the surrounding area, using Lela's long knife. I wasn't allowed to go because standing up made me feel dizzy and, besides, I can't tie anything anyway. I'm beginning to suspect I have concussion which means I should be resting. If I win these Games, I will probably spend the next few years retching which will undoubtedly be something to look forward to. If I lose the Games, I will not spend those years retching which is an upside, I guess.
We eat little and drink little, hoping to conserve what we have. It's not too bad because we both ate something this morning and we're used to being hungry.
Once we've finished eating, we talk about teaming up again. I'm not sure how good an idea it is in the long-term, partly because I don't think I'll be able to trust Mattis when the Games have been going on for a long time, and partly because I'm paranoid. What the Gamemakers like is blood and gore. I've deprived them of it several times: I didn't die in the cliff fall and I didn't let Mattis try to save me. Gloss let me go. I let Lela go. Lela helped me in response. Then Mattis found me and helped me. And my inspired statement about not wanting to kill anyone in these Games. I'm only good to be killed. And I don't want Mattis to share my fate.
I wonder if this is why they sent Mattis in our direction, actually. Maybe I wouldn't have killed him but Lela probably would have tried and I would have tried to stop the fight and maybe killed whoever killed the other in anger. That's what they would have been banking on anyway. But then I remember that when I stepped outside, they sent something big flying at me. Almost as though they were trying to kill me then... But no, the Gamemakers don't actively try to kill the tributes. They use the other tributes to do that. I think I'm overanalysing this. I'm definitely not their priority.
I can't really explain these things to him. He knows our trust in each other has to run out eventually and knows, I think, that I don't really trust anyone much anyway. But he doesn't see why that would be in two days time. I don't try to explain the paranoia thing to him: even I'm not convinced by it. But, in the end, we come to a decision: if we team up for the day and then spend the next day apart, we'll be able to cover more ground and find a better place to live. Then we team up again unless one of us prefers being alone. The practicality of it is ridiculous but the theory makes sense. Besides, I don't feel well enough to try and continue the debate. I'm not even sure why I've decided I don't want to be in a team anymore.
(But I do know, really. Trust has nothing to do with it. I don't want Mattis to die because of me. If I can't save myself, I will save Mattis. I won't let him be Lela. But I can't tell him that and I'm not even sure how sane this point is.)
When darkness falls, I hear the anthem play and then the face of Lela appears in the sky. The hovercraft picked her up after we'd sat in the cave so her body must be in a coffin by now. Neither Mattis nor I say anything but I offer to take first watch. Mattis starts to object, telling me I need to rest, but I glare at him. He goes to the far end of the cave and lies down.
It's only when I hear him breathing in that way which shows he's deeply asleep that I allow the tears I've been holding back to stream down my face.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
I dream when I sleep. It's a multitude of images, of my family watching at home, of Enya and her friends, and in the background of this, I can see Lela being killed by the flying debris. When Mattis wakes me up, I don't feel any more refreshed than I did before I went to sleep.
Mattis checks the traps and we discover that we have trapped one squirrel. Not exactly the most successful of hunts but food is food so neither of us complain – instead, I attempt to skin it. I'm not particularly successful. Breakfast becomes the remains of the mess I make.
As soon as we finish, the cannon fires. Mattis jumps and then laughs nervously, apologising. I look out of the cave but I can't see the hovercraft or any danger.
"W-who do you think that was?" Mattis asks.
"How would I know?"
"S-sorry."
I turn to look at him. "You're stuttering again."
"S-sorry ... I ... I just ... I don't want to see any more deaths..."
I frown. "You were calm when I woke up," I point out. "And Lela was dead."
He winces. "Y-yeah, but you didn't see me when I ... when I found you. And I didn't realise she'd saved your life so that m-made it better." He's silent and then says, quietly, "W-was that her name, Anfisa? Lela?"
I realise that this is the first time I've said her name aloud since he found me. "Yeah. I don't know her surname though. Just that she was Lela from District 6."
"It seems different when you know their names," he says quietly. "I mean ... I don't like seeing anyone die but ... knowing who they are makes it ... personal." He looks away from me. "But that doesn't make sense, does it? I mean, either way I didn't know her and either way she's ... dead. But I saw that boy's name – the boy from 7 – and that made it feel personal as well."
He looks at me and I know I'm meant to explain it in a logical and scathing way. I can even think of an answer: without a name, we're just objects. It's the names which identify us and make us human. And killing humans is worse than destroying a mere object.
But I don't want to. I'm tired and I ache. So I just say, "I know."
There's an awkward silence and then he looks out of the cave again. "Can't see anything. Shall we go?"
"Might as well."
We begin to walk. Mattis points out the path he came from so we decide to walk along the other one, simply for the variety. Both of us have lost our bearings but as we walk, I decide to work out how many tributes are dead. Nine at the bloodbath. The boy from 7. Lela and this unknown tribute. That makes twelve. Only twelve in seven days. The audience will be disappointed. Still, considering six of the remaining tributes are the Careers, that only leaves six of the rest of us. And if Mattis and I are taken out, that makes four unknown tributes left.
I try to work out who they are but my memory's just not good enough. I think Lela's district partner is still alive and I think the girl from 11 is but I can't remember who else.
"I can't believe we've only been here for a week," Mattis says when we stop to rest. "It feels much longer."
"Well, two weeks since we left District 5. And it has been pretty intense."
"Yeah ... d'you think we'll ever go back?"
"No."
"Oh."
I can't help smiling even though it's probably not funny. "We can't both go back," I explain. "Only one winner of the Games."
"Oh. Yeah."
We don't say anything to each other for the rest of the break. I guess it wasn't funny after all.