Chapter Nine:
"I think we're safe," Ronan whispered. "Let's find water."
I armed my bow and walked carefully through the jungle. I've been described jungles before, but this one was alive. Frightening. Real. I was so out of my element that I had no idea what to do.
"Let's walk this way," Cedric suggested softly. "It goes downhill, which is where most water will go."
He does not need to treat us like little children. I knew that. Just in my nervous mind, I tended to forget. Faren squeaked something.
"What?" I whispered, turning around.
She pointed to something dead ahead. I squinted at what she indicated. Faren whispered weakly, "Sp...sp...spiders."
They were huge and black with creepy yellow stripes. I knew, just by seeing them, that we were already in loads of trouble. These spiders weren't ordinary. They were the size of a large punch bowl, which had to be at least a foot and a half in diameter.
Ronan pulled out a sword, and the first spider jumped. Literally, jumped. Faren screamed as it landed on Ronan, and bit him. Ronan sank his sword deep in to it, and it fell dead. At least they were easy to kill. A huge gash where the spider had bitten had taken a large chunk out of his arm.
"It's eating me alive!" Ronan shouted. "They're carnivorous!"
Nothing had scared me more. We all started shooting, stabbing, smacking and throwing spiders away from us as the herd moved forward. A large spider landed on my elbow, causing me to scream. I threw it away, but not before it took a bite in to my arm. I stomped on a nearby spider and started stabbing some with arrows, not bothering to arm the bow.
Once all of them were unmoving on the ground, we checked each other for giant spiders, picking up our stuff, and ran. Who cares about the fact we're bleeding and gasping and frightened? We sprinted away, and when we finally came to a stop, we just stood there, thirsty and shivering.
"It's raining!" Faren said happily as a raindrop landed on her hand. She yelped in pain.
We all frowned at her, and she showed where the drop had hit her hand. There was a large angry red sore.
"Poison rain," I said weakly. "We have to run."
We weren't going to get far, I knew that. We were exhausted and thirsty already. But when the first raindrops hit each of us, we took off sprinting as fast as we could. I began to ache so much that I didn't realize where the rain had landed or that it hurt. I just knew to get away. Faren and I started to lag behind, first five feet, then ten, and soon twenty. My mouth was swollen with sores, but I managed to yell, "Cedric!"
Cedric and Ronan paused and ran back to us. Cedric took my bow and quiver of arrows, and Ronan took my backpack and Faren's backpack, first aid kit, and knives. We were able to keep up for another couple minutes, but that's when we all stopped, hardly able to breathe, quivering in pain, and almost ready to close our eyes in defeat.
That's when I realized something life-saving. I could hardly manage to keep my eyes open, but I saw something: Our clothes. No sores. No swelling. The rain dripped off our clothes like a rain jacket. Waterproof, Adeon had said. And that meant poison rain too.
My mouth was too swollen to manage a word, but lifting my red hands, I pulled out a blanket made out of the same materials, and threw it over us. I earned some weird looks, but when the rain no longer hit us, they gave weak smiles.
The rain stopped, but we didn't move. We were tired, weak, and sore. And then, it started to rain again.
Faren, frowning a little, put her hand out. She made a small noise in the back of her throat, and then stepped out in to the rain. We all watched until suddenly, she was clear of the sores. Her face, eyes, nose, hands, and feet shrank back to normal size. The sores disappeared. She opened her mouth, allowing the water to seep in and allow her to breathe.
"It's healing rain!" she said happily, and we threw off the blanket. Ronan lied down weakly against the backpacks, the sores steaming.
I tilted my head back, allowing the water to seep in to my mouth. I swallowed some. It tasted clear and fresh. My scalp stopped hurting and searing and itching, and felt clean, as if I had just walked out of a shower. I chanced a glance at my large spider bite, but it had not gone away. Cedric had a spider bite on his hand, Ronan on his arm between his elbow and his wrist. Mine covered my entire left elbow, and it throbbed. Faren had two, unfortunately. One on the back of her heel, and the other on her right hand.
When the healing rain stopped, we all sat down, soaked to the bone, and happy about it.
"Now what?" asked Ronan.
"Food," Faren said.
"Safety. We have no idea where everyone is. There's been no cannon shots so far, unless the poison rain affected our ears. For all we know, we were the only ones affected by the poison rain." Cedric sighed softly.
"Maybe Haymitch and my parents will send some spider medicine. My elbow hurts," I said.
Ronan gave me a sad look. "I don't think that they'll be able to."
"Let's take inventory," Faren suggested. She sifted through everything we had. Luckily, we had lost nothing in the poison rain, and the rain hadn't affected anything. "So, there's poison rain that just about kills us, but our waterproof clothes and blankets protect that. There's healing rain that heals the sores for the poison rain. There are carnivorous giant spiders."
We exchanged glances. That's all we knew. Now, though, we knew much more than we did when we first stepped in to the jungle.
"I have a first aid kit," added Faren. "We should bandage these spider bites."
I bandaged Cedric's hand as he winced slightly.
"You're horrible at first aid, aren't you?" he asked me.
I blushed. "Sorry. Grandma is the family medic, not me. Hearth is pretty good at this stuff, though." I finished bandaging his hand, and if I do say so myself, it was pretty well bandaged. Cedric bandaged my elbow until my arm looked part mummy. I picked up my bow and arrows in my right hand, my left arm bandaged and left dangling at my side. "I'm going to look around," I told them. "Stay here. I'll be back."
"I'll go with you," Ronan said. "You need protection."
I glared a little, and then accepted his offer. Ronan grabbed his sword, and together, we crept in to the forest.
"I'm going to climb a tree and look around," I whispered. "Hold this." I gave him my backpack and put the bow and arrows on my left shoulder. I knew this was a horrible idea. I'm no good at climbing trees, no matter how much my mom tried to help me. My determination won over my fear though, and I started climbing as fast as I could. The tree was the tallest I could find, so I had to make it to the top.
I kept climbing until I could see above the other trees. I looked around. On my right, to the east was a mountain, which strangely did not have any jungle on it. I could see the shimmering lake, and where we had started. The field was covered with blood.
There was a loud cannon shot, followed by four others, which marked the end of the bloodbath. It nearly made me fall out of my tree, and I had to grip harder. I wish I had binoculars. My guess though, is that the remaining tributes either went up the mountain or in to the forest. That's where most of the cover is. I was about to start climbing down, when I heard a noise from above me.
I glanced up, and saw a beautiful pair of bright blue eyes. Then, I knew I was in trouble.