The Living Games
A/N Helloooo! I survived the hurricane and I am okay. Our pear tree fell down with a heck of a lot of branches, but we're good. My grandma's house got flooded, and we pulled up her floor and helped her clean up, it was nice to do something good for once, instead of wallowing in darkness *dark poems*. Anyway, here's the next chapter! Also, today has been a really supportive day! Anyyyyyway, this chapter kind of starts the whole drama and action of the arena. Stayyyyyy tuned!
And to Splashshine, I actually live in South Carolina! Thanks for asking, though:)
Chapter Twenty One: Feel the Rain on Your Skin (No one else can feel it for ya:)
Aubrey looked into the night sky, staring at the pictures of the boy from District Five, and the boy from District Six as their faces flashed during the anthem. They had both gotten pretty low scores, as the anthem showed her. When Leila's face flashed in the sky, Aubrey had to look away, the memories of the day still too fresh in her mind.
"She was nice. I would have loved to take her with us and make her happy with the little time she had. The little time we all have."
Aubrey looked at Josh, a little startled.
"Funny how you say that, when you were so willing to let her die earlier."
Josh flinched and Aubrey immediately sagged, regretting her words.
"Listen," Josh said. "I know you've had a long day, after everything we've done a . . . and all of the traps and stuff, so I'll just let you cool down for a night and talk to you in the morning."
Aubrey opened her mouth to say something, she wasn't sure what, but Josh had already turned around and started to keep watch. She knew once he stopped talking, he wouldn't start again.
Aubrey sighed and chided herself as she slipped into the sleeping bag, grateful for the warmth, but not thinking she deserved it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid!
As the seconds passed, the day began to catch up with her and she found herself drifting off to sleep.
Even sleep couldn't stop her from hearing Josh's words, "I wish I could've saved her too."
• • •
Aubrey woke up the the early morning light, and sat up and yawned. She had taken watch for a bit last night, but there wasn't much to keep watch for, unless dirt and sand counted.
Aubrey approached Josh warily after last night, but he looked at her and smiled as if nothing had happened.
"Here, take some of this," Josh handed her the last of the dried fruit. "By the time we need to eat a serious meal again, I'll have already hunted."
"Hunted what? There's about nothing around here."
He smiled a little, a michevious light shining in his usually unimpressed eyes. "Exactly."
When Aubrey showed no signs of understanding that (she was not a mind reader, as much and Zane had argued otherwise), he shook his head.
"We're going back into the forest."
"Ah, the forest of death and pain. Wonderful. Any other suggestions? What should we do next? Throw ourselves into the volcano on the other side of the arena? You know, I've often heard that death by lava is certainly the way to go."
Josh rolled his eyes. "Going into the forest is our best chance of survival. If we stay in this desert, we'll most likely die from dehydration and lack of food, if the animals don't kill us first. In the woods we have the advantage. We are most familiar with the woods, and there we can hunt and gather. It wouldn't hurt to take out some of the other tributes. I say this all with a very strategic point of view. The woods are our best bet."
Aubrey sighed, really wishing she could argue with him, but everything he had said was valid and right. She rolled her eyes.
"Fine. But if it comes down to it, I'm still saying we camp in the volcano."
Josh shook his head, but smiled. "Well, let's pack up. I want to leave this desert as fast as possible."
Aubrey didn't argue.
"What was that? Did you hear that?"
Aubrey stuffed the sleeping bag back into the covering and put it into its respective pack.
"Hear what?"
"Hear you. Not complaining, or arguing. Must be a miracle."
Aubrey smirked. "Like miracle growth?"
Josh muttered a few words about where she could put her miracle growth.
"If I have to sit through one more science class hearing about some absolutely impossible, impractical, unimaginable "miracle growth", I'm going to rip all of my hair out and jump into the volcano."
Aubrey knew he hated miracle growth, which was a substance in their science homework that would make plants grow faster and thicker. He always talked about how it wasn't possible, and how "absolutely, positively inferior" the schooling system was.
"And you said it was a bad idea?"
"I never said that it was a bad idea. I just chose not to speak on it."
"So you think it's reasonable? Because I need your full approval before I do anything stupid. And I don't want my precious hair to burn off before the rest of me does. That makes for a horrifying death, as Kerri put it. And the lava color has to go with my outfit. I suppose red and green go together. But will it still look good with the camouflage print? Maybe, though the boots might be the thing to tie it all together—"
"Aubrey!"
"Yes, dear?" Aubrey responded calmly.
"Pack more, speak less."
Aubrey huffed, but agreed.
In a few minutes, all of their stuff was packed, and they were on their way onto the forbidden forest.
• • •
As they ventured farther and farther into the woods, Aubrey could see the light going back into Zane's eyes. He brightened up and walked a little faster, and there a barely visible bounce in his step.
Aubrey smiled at him.
They walked for about half an hour before coming into a clearing that had a single tree in it, and the tree was tall and thick, and it would be thick enough to hide them if they were to sleep in it.
"Hm, I'd like to come back to this place later," Josh said, peering around one of the branches.
"You think it's a trap?" Aubrey asked, just to be cautious.
He shrugged. "Could be, could not be. But we haven't found another place, and there's no way we're sleeping in the open. If we find another place, we can forget about this. But until then . . ."
Aubrey shrugged. "Alright. But how do you recommend we find our way back again?"
"Leave a trail of breadcrumbs?"
"That didn't work for Ansel and Gretta, and it won't work for us."
"It's Hansel and Gretel, actually."
"I don't care."
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"We could just walk in a straight line," she suggested.
"Might be hard for you. You can't do anything straight."
"I mean, you're not wrong, but still shut up. Let's just go, and if it was meant to be then we'll find our way back."
"That logic is the kind of logic without logic, which I guess I can accept."
Aubrey nodded her head, barely understanding that sentence.
"Alright."
They walked for a couple more minutes, and then a couple more hours, before they started to realize they had been walking in a complete circle.
They ended up back at the tree in the clearing.
"I guess it is destiny," Aubrey said at the same time Josh said, "I knew it was your fault. You're so gay that you lead us in a curved line."
"This sounds like beginning of a bad joke. 'A bisexual and an asexual walk into a suspicious clearing'." (A/N Ayeee, Magnus Chase reference, changed a bit:)
"I believe it's supposed to be "A rabbi, a priest, and a Lutheran minister walk into a bar"."
"There are a million different versions, all of them cheesy and stupid."
"Stupid to those who don't find the humor in them."
"Whatever. We gonna set up camp or what?"
They set down their supplies near the tree and took a look around.
The tree spanned wider than they thought, and had a lot of leaves and branches that covered the sky if you stood below it. It stretched for a few feet.
"This would be a great place to stay dry in the rain. It could probably stop a flood, too."
As if on cue, it started to rain. Like pouring buckets and buckets of rain.
Aubrey turned to Josh to say something sarcastic, but she remembered their bags that were in the rain.
She noticed a weird, almost . . . acidic smell in the air, but she ignored it and ran towards their packs, Josh following her.
As soon as the rain hit her skin, she felt the most painful thing she had ever experienced in her life. It was like bathing in liquid fire, hot oil spreading up and down her veins.
She screamed and choked on the acidic rain, spitting it out on the ground and turning to josh, who was turning red from the acid and running towards her.
Aubrey fell on her knees and crawled towards the bags, looping one round her arm and crawling back towards the shade of the trees.
Josh had done the same, and by the time they both reached the tree they were red and shaking.
Aubrey couldn't stop twitching from random places in her body, and Josh looked like he was having a hard time moving his limbs.
"I . . . I was not expecting that! What the everloving fuck was that?! Acid rain?" Aubrey screamed, getting even redder from her anger.
Josh gasped a little and spoke like it hurt.
"Very toxic acid rain. Can be fatal if received in excessive amounts and not treated. See a doctor for more reference."
"What the fuck is wrong with you? You sound like a medicine infomercial!"
"That's what the station said at training. We need to get the healing cream, or else our joints will stiffen to rock, and we'll have heart attacks from twitches. I'm the former, and you're the latter, I'm guessing."
Aubrey sighed, and immediately regretted it when her lungs rattled like she was having a coughing fit.
"Well um, Kerri, this would be a great time to send something."
Nothing happened.
Aubrey shifted towards Josh and hugged herself to stop the twitches.
"So do we sleep here? I don't think anyone would bother us through all this rain, and if we go up the tree, we might not be able to come back down."
Josh nodded, and Aubrey heard his neck crack like he hadn't moved it in seventy years.
"In the morning, I might not be able to move, but we'll definitely be alive. If we get sent cream, You might have to rub it on me."
"'A bisexual rubs down an asexual in a rainy clearing . . .'"
"Aubrey, shut up and go to sleep. We're both very tired, and there's no need to keep watch."
Aubrey gathered up on some leaves that had fallen to sleep on, not wanting to damage the sleeping bag.
She made sure Josh was okay and comfortable before falling asleep.
• • •
Aubrey woke up to the sound of the anthem playing, showing that no one had died that day.
She looked at Josh, and saw him fast asleep. The rain had gone down, and was a light drizzle.
Aubrey stretched her limbs a bit, feeling her twitches coming back.
She looked beside her and saw a jar. A weird jar made of metal with a note written in black ink on the top.
She picked up the jar and read the top.
For all of your twitching and stony needs! Just rub a little bit on your hands and smear it wherever the acid is bothering you. You guys have worked up quite a bit of sponsors, but this jar cost a lot. Be more careful! -Kerri Clark
Aubrey smiled a bit, shaking her head at her mentor.
She unscrewed the jar and stuck her finger in it, feeling the cool, thick substance. It smelled like peppermint, and it was a light green color.
She rubbed it on her hands a bit, and touched it to her arms, which got the most damage.
Instantly, the pain and twitching stopped where she rubbed it.
She laughed a little and rubbed it everywhere the rain had touched, until she was no longer twitching and burning. Her jacket was pretty much ruined in the rain, so she rolled it up and set it next to the tree.
The night air was cool, but still way warmer than the desert at night.
Aubrey crawled over to Josh and started rubbing the cream on his joints. He didn't seem to have noticed what she was doing until she was almost done, and he almost slapped her in the face with his stray arm.
"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! My arm is just really numb, and I can't really control it."
She snorted lightheartedly. "You're just making excuses to hit me."
"Maybe. Is that the cream?"
She nodded.
"Spread a little on my back, but I think that's the last place."
She lifted up his shirt and rubbed it on his back, storing the jar in one of their packs.
"You missed the anthem, but nobody died."
He nodded and went back to sleep.
Aubrey followed and lied down on her leaf bed, and drifted off to sleep feeling a lot more comfortable.