Katniss
After I've sent Olive off to get some sleep, I sit with my bow loaded, watching the jungle, which is ghostly pale and green in the moonlight. After an hour or so, the lightning stops. I can hear the rain coming in, though, pattering on the leaves a few hundred yards away. I keep waiting for it to reach us but it never does.
The sound of the cannon startles me, although it makes little impression on my sleeping companions. There's no point in awakening them for this. Another tribute dead, that brings us down to fifteen.
The elusive rain shuts off suddenly, as if someone flipped a switch. Which the Gamemakers probably did.
Moments after it stops, I see the fog sliding softly in from the direction of the recent downpour. Just a reaction. Cool rain on the steaming ground, I think. It continues to approach at a steady pace. Tendrils reach forward and then curl like fingers, as if they are pulling the rest behind them. As I watch, I feel the hairs on my neck begin to rise. Something's wrong with this fog. The progression of the front line is too uniform to be natural. And if it's not natural ...
A sickeningly sweet odor begins to invade my nostrils and I reach for the others, shouting for them to wake up.
In the few seconds it takes to rouse them, I begin to blister.
Tiny, searing stabs. Wherever the droplets of mist touch my skin.
"Run!" I scream at the others. "Run!"
They're up almost instantly, fumbling for weapons that won't help them in this situation."It's the fog,"I yell,"It's poisonous! Run!"
And then we're sprinting down hill, running for dear life. Olive and Amphitrite are ahead of us, but Madge has trouble keeping up. Usually, she's a much faster runner than I am, but the tangle of vines and undergrowth, which unbalance me occasionally, trip her at every step. I curse myself for not taking her into the woods more often.
I look back at the wall of fog extending in a straight line as far as I can see in either direction. A terrible impulse to flee, to abandon Madge and save myself, shoots through me. It would be so simple, to run full out, perhaps to even climb a tree above the fog line, which seems to top out at about forty feet. That's how the Games are played, everyone for themselves. But I trap my terror, push it down, and stay by her side. In these Games my own survival isn't the goal - or, not just that. There's a plan. We can both get out. I think of the eyes glued to the television screens in the districts, seeing if I will run, as the Capitol wishes, or hold my ground.
I lock my fingers tightly into Madge's and say,"Watch my feet. Just try to step where I step." It helps, a lot. We move much faster, now that Madge can run as fast as she is actually capable of, but it's still never enough to afford a rest, and the mist continues to lap at our heels. Droplets spring free of the body of vapor. They burn, but not like fire. Less a sense of heat and more of intense pain as the chemicals find our flesh, cling to it, and burrow down through the layers of skin. Our jumpsuits are no help at all. We may as well be dressed in tissue paper, for all the protection they give.
I hear Olive's voice shout out a curse infront of us, but it's too late to stop. I stumble over her where she's sprawled on the floor and Madge and I both go down aswell, the three of us a tangle of legs and arms on the floor.
By the time we all get to our feet, both of my arms are twitching uncontrollably. The fog has moved in on us, the body of it less than a yard away. Something is wrong with Olive's legs; she's trying to walk but they move in a spastic, puppetlike fashion.
Wordlessly, Madge and I exchange a look and a nod, then we each grab Olive by one arm and drag her between us. My arms don't want to properly do what I tell them, though, and the fog is coming closer and closer. My left leg starts twitching; Madge can't fair any better either.
"Give her here,"Amphitrite suddenly says, yanking Olive from our grasp. For a wild moment, I think she wants to throw her back into the fog and I'm disgusted to say I don't immediately protest. Then Amphitrite throws Olive over her shoulder like a sack of flour and I realise she has come back to help us. The only one unaffected by the fog so far, Amphitrite is faster than both me and Madge, even with Olive's added weight.
Dragging my useless leg behind me, I stagger after her, having no idea what else to do.
Time and space lose meaning as the fog seems to invade my brain, muddling my thoughts, making everything unreal. Some deep-rooted animal desire for survival keeps me stumbling after Amphitrite and Madge, continuing to move, although I'm probably dead already. Parts of me are dead, or clearly dying.
Moonlight glinting on Amphitrite's bronze hair, beads of searing pain peppering me, a leg turned to wood. I follow the girl from Four until she collapses on the ground, Olive still on top of her, Madge next to them. I seem to have no ability to stop my own forward motion and simply propel myself onward until I trip over their prone bodies, just one more on the heap. This is where and how and when we all die, I think. But the thought is abstract and far less alarming than the current agonies of my body. I hear the girls groan and manage to drag myself off the others. Now I can see the wall of fog, which has taken on a pearly white quality. Maybe it's my eyes playing tricks, or the moonlight, but the fog seems to be transforming. Yes, it's becoming thicker, as if it has pressed up against a glass window and is being forced to condense. I squint harder and realize the fingers no longer protrude from it. In fact, it has stopped moving forward entirely. Like the rain that never reached us, it has reached the end of its territory. Either that or the Gamemakers have decided not to kill us just yet.
"It's stopped," I try to say, but only an awful croaking sound comes from my swollen mouth. "It's stopped," I say again, and this time I must be clearer, because the other three all turn their heads to the fog. It begins to rise upward now, as if being slowly vacuumed into the sky. We watch until it has all been sucked away and not the slightest wisp remains.
Olive rolls off Amphitrite, who turns over onto her back. We lie there gasping, twitching, our minds and bodies invaded by the poison. After a few minutes pass, Olive vaguely gestures upward. "Mon-hees." I look up and spot a pair of what I guess are monkeys. I have never seen a live monkey - there's nothing like that in our woods at home. But I must have seen a picture, or one in the Games, because when I see the creatures, the same word comes to my mind. I think these have orange fur, although it's hard to tell, and are about half the size of a full-grown human. I take the monkeys for a good sign. Surely they would not hang around if the air was deadly. For a while, we quietly observe one another, humans and monkeys. Then Madge struggles to her knees and crawls down the slope. We all crawl, since walking now seems as remarkable a feat as flying; we crawl until the vines turn to a narrow strip of sandy beach and the warm water that surrounds the Cornucopia laps our faces. I jerk back as if I've touched an open flame.
Rubbing salt in a wound. For the first time I truly appreciate the expression, because the salt in the water makes the pain of my wounds so blinding I nearly black out. But there's another sensation, of drawing out. I experiment by gingerly placing only my hand in the water. Torturous, yes, but then less so. And through the blue layer of water, I see a milky substance leaching out of the wounds on my skin. As the whiteness diminishes, so does the pain. I unbuckle my belt and strip off my jumpsuit, which is little more than a perforated rag. My shoes and undergarments are inexplicably unaffected. Little by little, one small portion of a limb at a time, I soak the poison out of my wounds. Madge and Amphitrite seem to be doing the same. But Olive backed away from the water at first touch and lies facedown on the sand, either unwilling or unable to purge herself.
By the time I have gotten the poison out of my body, Amphitrite has already started working on the girl from Two, cutting away her jumpsuit and scooping up handfulls of water to pour over her. Madge and I go and help. Between the three of us, we make quick work of it, soon dragging her completely into the water. It's like she comes back to life, spitting out saltwater and cussing and clinging to Amphitrite before realising what she's doing and pushing the older girl away with a scowl. The girl from Four only starts laughing at this.
"I'm going to try to tap a tree," I say before they can start fighting. My fingers fumble at my belt and find the spile still hanging from its vine. Madge holds her hand out for it."Let me, Katniss. You're still all shaky."
I don't argue with her, because she's right. Instead I try to put myself back together. I rescue my mockingjay pin from my ruined jumpsuit and pin it to the strap of my undershirt. The flotation belt must be acid resistant, since it looks as good as new. I can swim, so the flotation belt's not really necessary, but I buckle it back on anyway, thinking it might offer some protection. I undo my hair and comb it with my fingers, thinning it out considerably since the fog droplets damaged it. Then I braid back what's left of it.
Madge has found a good tree about ten yards from the narrow strip of beach. We can hardly see her, but the sound of the knife against the wooden trunk is crystal clear.
I have moved out a bit farther into the shallows, floating alternately on my belly and back. Olive has retreated farther towards the land, clearly uncomfortable with the water. Amphitrite, who has swum out pretty far, turns around and dives the whole way back, resurfacing right infront of Olive."What's up, grumpy face?"
"Oh, I dunno,"the younger girl replies sarcastically,"Almost dying just seemed more fun in theory. Also, who the hell stripped me down?"
"That would be me,"Amphitrite says in a tone of voice that I know means she's giving Olive a sultry look without having to see it. I groan but slowly move closer, ready to stop a fight from breaking out."But don't worry, it was medically necessary."
Olive pulls a face."See, if Katniss said that, I'd believe it. When you say it, it somehow sounds even pervier than admitting you want me as naked as possible."
Amphitrite laughs good-naturedly."So, like, do you have to be from Seven to get you naked or what?"
"Nope, you just have to be hot,"Olive shoots back, prompting Amphitrite to get up and gesture at herself in lieu of saying anything else. I decide it's time to cut them off."Just soak in the water and behave," I say. "Or if you feel this good, let's go help Madge."