Katniss
In just the short time it takes to cross to the edge of the jungle, I become aware of the change. Put it down to years of hunting, or maybe my senses are hightend from my earlier adrenalin rush. But I sense the mass of warm bodies poised above us. They don't need to chatter or scream. The mere breathing of so many is enough.
I touch Olive's arm and she follows my gaze upward, in turn reaching out to quietly alert Amphitrite. I don't know how they arrived so silently. Perhaps they didn't. We've all been absorbed in restoring our bodies.
During that time they've assembled. Not five or ten but scores of monkeys weigh down the limbs of the jungle trees. The pair we spotted when we first escaped the fog felt like a welcoming committee. This crew feels ominous.
I arm my bow, the other two girls adjusting their hold on their weapons aswell."Madge,"I say as calmly as I can manage,"Come over here, will you? I need your help with something. There's something you need to see, but you'd better move towards us quietly."
Only now does Madge stop paying attention to her work on the tree, obviously sensing that something is amiss from my tone of voice.
"Yeah, sure,"she says as casually as possible and starts walking towards us. She's just five yards from the beach when she senses them. Her eyes only dart up for a second, but it's as if she's triggered a bomb. The monkeys explode into a shrieking mass of orange fur and converge on her.
I've never seen any animal move so fast. They slide down the vines as if the things were greased. Leap impossible distances from tree to tree. Fangs bared, hackles raised, claws shooting out like switchblades. I may be unfamiliar with monkeys, but animals in nature don't act like this. "Mutts!" I spit out as my allies and I crash into the greenery.
I know every arrow must count, and they do. In the eerie light, I bring down monkey after monkey, targeting eyes and hearts and throats, so that each hit means a death. Madge is slashing at the things with her knife, Amphitrite's trident spears them like fish and Olive impales her axe in body after body, but they still continue to come at us. We have a crude formation, a sort of circle with our backs to one another, but even that can't keep us safe for long.
Then, suddenly, my fingers grasp only thin air. I'm out of arrows. I draw my knife but I know I won't be able to defend myself with it properly. The mutts break through my defense again and again and then I know it's over. I know the jaw, wide and full of fangs, will close around my neck and there's nothing I can do, even if I evade the first bite, it will attack again.
But then someone barrels into me and something warm splatters onto my face. Blood, I realies, the mutt's blood. Olive yanks her axe free, panting heavily."Run! Get to the beach! Run, you idiot!"
For a few seconds, I'm disorientated. But then I realise she's right. The path to the beach is almost clear now, most mutts further in the jungle. Madge and I slash our way through, and it's only then that I remember she has a sheath of arrows aswell.
Once she hands it over, I give cover to Amphitrite and Olive, who are slowly backing away from the monkeys and towards us now. But something has happened to the monkeys. They are withdrawing, backing up trees, fading into the jungle, as if some unheard voice calls them away. A Gamemaker's voice, telling them it is enough.
For the second time in what can't even be an hour, the four of us stumble into the water, washing the blood and gore off of our bodies before dragging ourselves back on land.
We stare at the jungle, numb and exhausted. In the quiet, I notice that the spots where the fog droplets touched my skin have scabbed over. They've stopped hurting and begun to itch. Intensely. I try to think of this as a good sign. That they are healing. I glance over at Madge, at Amphitrite, at Olive, and see they're all scratching at their damaged faces.
"Don't scratch," I say, wanting badly to scratch myself. But I know it's the advice my mother would give. "You'll only bring infection. Think it's safe to try for the water again?"
We make our way back to the tree Madge was tapping. The girls from Four and Two and I stand with our weapons poised while she works the spile in, but no threat appears. Madge's found a good vein and the water begins to gush from the spile. We sate our thirst, let the warm water pour over our itching bodies. We fill a handful of shells with drinking water and go back to the beach. I pick up what arrows I can find on our way.
"Why don't you guys get some sleep?"Amphitrite suggests once we're back on the beach. She is in the best shape out of the four of us, so we agree. Despite all, sleep comes quickly.
It's midmorning when I open my eyes again. Olive's still out beside me. Above us, a mat of grass suspended on branches shields our faces from the sunlight. I sit up and see that Amphitrite's hands have not been idle. Two woven bowls are filled with fresh water. A third holds a mess of shellfish.
She and Madge sit on the sand, cracking them open with a stone. "They're better fresh," the girl from Four says, ripping a chunk of flesh from a shell and popping it into her mouth.
My stomach begins to growl at the smell of food and I reach for one. The sight of my fingernails, caked with blood, stops me. I've been scratching my skin raw in my sleep.
"You know, if you scratch you'll bring on infection," says Madge, a teasing smile on her lips.
"That's what I've heard," I say. I go into the saltwater and wash off the blood, trying to decide which I hate more, pain or itching. Fed up, I stomp back onto the beach, turn my face upward, and snap, "Hey, Haymitch, if you're not too drunk, we could use a little something for our skin."
It's almost funny how quickly the parachute appears above me. I reach up and the tube lands squarely in my open hand. "About time," I say, but I can't keep the scowl on my face. Haymitch. Prim. What I wouldn't give for five minutes of conversation with them.
We wake up Olive for breakfast and to smear the ointment on all of us. It makes us all look monstrous - the ointment seems to be causing some of the scabs to peel - but I'm glad for the medicine. Not just because it gives relief from the itching, but also because it acts as protection from that blazing white sun in the pink sky. By its position, I estimate it must be going on ten o'clock, that we've been in the arena for about a day. It feels like half a lifetime instead.
For a while the jungle seems almost static, humming, shimmering, but not flaunting its dangers. Then, in the distance, comes screaming. Across from us, a wedge of the jungle begins to vibrate. An enormous wave crests high on the hill, topping the trees and roaring down the slope. It hits the existing seawater with such force that, even though we're as far as we can get from it, the surf bubbles up around our knees, setting our few possessions afloat. Among the four of us, we manage to collect everything before it's carried off, except for our chemical-riddled jumpsuits, which are so eaten away no one cares if we lose them.
A cannon fires. We see the hovercraft appear over the area where the wave began and pluck a body from the trees.
The circle of water slowly calms down, having absorbed the giant wave. We rearrange our things back on the wet sand and are about to settle down when I see them. Three figures, about two spokes away, stumbling onto the beach. "There," I say quietly, nodding in the newcomers' direction. The others follow my gaze. As if by previous agreement, we all fade back into the shadows of the jungle.